What Duterte’s arrest means to the world
RODRIGO DUTERTE built his presidency on a promise: to wage a war on drugs so ruthless that the fish in Manila Bay would “grow fat” from the bodies of the dead. By the time he left office in 2022, thousands had been killed — many executed in the streets by police and vigilantes emboldened by his words. Now, the former Philippine president faces the prospect of answering for those crimes for the first time.
By issuing an arrest warrant for Duterte, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has done more than seek justice for the thousands killed in his brutal war on drugs. It has sent a signal — however tenuous — that despite the rising tide of nationalism and authoritarianism, the rules-based global order (RBO) still holds sway. At a time when multilateral institutions are increasingly dismissed as toothless, and when figures like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Jair Bolsonaro have worked to undermine international norms, Duterte’s indictment is a rare moment where international justice appears to function as intended.
For the past decade, global governance has been in retreat. The ICC itself has been dismissed as a Western tool, with major powers like the United States, China, and Russia refusing to submit to its jurisdiction. Donald Trump openly sanctioned ICC officials for investigating potential American war crimes in Afghanistan. Putin, indicted by the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine, continues to operate with impunity, shielded by Russia’s geopolitical heft. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has brushed off the ICC’s investigations into alleged war crimes in Gaza, with full-throated backing from Washington. The arrest of a former head of state like Duterte, then, is an anomaly — one that forces a question: Does this signal a revival of international law, or is it merely an exception in a world that increasingly favors raw power over legal constraints?
The modern international legal order was built on a simple yet ambitious idea: that law, rather than brute force, should govern relations between states. Rooted in the Enlightenment philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who envisioned a “perpetual peace” based on republican governance and collective security, the project gained real momentum in the 20th century. Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations, though ultimately a failure, laid the groundwork for the United Nations and the post-World War II multilateral institutions that would form the backbone of the RBO: the ICC, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the World Trade Organization, among others.
These institutions were designed to constrain power — ensuring that even the most powerful nations would be subject to common rules. In practice, however, enforcement has always been selective. The ICC has successfully prosecuted figures like former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević, Liberian warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor, and Sudanese strongman Omar al-Bashir. But it has largely failed to hold leaders from the most powerful nations accountable. The United States has repeatedly undermined the very institutions it helped build. Despite positioning itself as a global enforcer of democracy, it has refused to recognize the ICC’s authority while using its influence to shield allies from prosecution.
Duterte’s arrest comes at a time when the world is shifting away from the ideals of the post-war liberal order and toward a far more cynical, power-driven system. The past decade has seen an erosion of trust in global institutions, with populist and nationalist leaders actively working to dismantle or discredit them. Trump’s “America First” doctrine weakened NATO and withdrew the US from multilateral agreements, including the Paris Climate Accord. Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 marked a blatant rejection of the UN Charter’s principles on sovereignty. Bolsonaro’s presidency openly dismissed international norms on environmental protections, leading to catastrophic deforestation in the Amazon. Netanyahu has ignored UN resolutions and rejected ICC scrutiny of Israel’s military actions, leveraging US support to deflect accountability.
In this climate, Duterte’s arrest is a striking departure from the trend. Unlike these figures, he does not benefit from great power immunity. The Philippines, while strategically significant, lacks the geopolitical leverage to resist the ICC indefinitely. Duterte’s successor, Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., has distanced himself from his predecessor’s bloody drug war, and while the Philippines formally withdrew from the ICC in 2019, the court still holds jurisdiction over crimes committed while the country was a signatory.
Duterte’s case raises uncomfortable questions about the selective nature of international justice. It is easier to prosecute leaders from smaller states than to hold superpowers accountable. The ICC’s credibility problem will persist as long as it appears to apply the law unevenly — aggressively pursuing African and Asian leaders while avoiding confrontations with figures in Washington, Beijing, or Moscow.
Yet, even a flawed system is preferable to no system at all. The alternative is a world where might makes right, where state leaders operate with absolute impunity, and where justice is no longer even aspirational. The arrest of Duterte does not solve these problems, but it offers a counterpoint to the prevailing narrative that global governance is dead. If anything, it proves that even in an era dominated by realpolitik, institutions like the ICC can still land a punch.
Whether this moment marks the beginning of a resurgence for international law or is merely an outlier in a declining system remains to be seen. But for the victims of Duterte’s drug war, and for those who still believe in a world governed by principles rather than power, it is a rare moment of accountability — one that should not be dismissed.
Jam Magdaleno is a political communications expert and the head of the Information and Communications unit at the Foundation for Economic Freedom, a Philippine-based policy think tank.
