The Philippines confronts Duterte’s authoritarian legacy at The Hague

Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) marks a watershed moment in global justice. As the first Asian leader to be arrested and detained in The Hague, Duterte is also the first to face trial specifically for state-initiated mass violence in the name of narcotics control.Yet, Duterte is not an outlier in waging an expansive state-led war on drugs. Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s early 2000s anti-drug campaign left thousands dead. In Colombia, former president Alvaro Uribe’s war on ‘narcoterrorism’ blurred the lines between counterinsurgency and the drug war, leading to extrajudicial killings.But unlike Duterte, neither faced international courts. Duterte’s indictment signals a landmark assertion of global accountability — that even sitting or former heads of state can no longer count on impunity when weaponising state power to carry out extrajudicial killings. Duterte’s case marks a precedent-setting moment that may...