President Rodrigo Duterte cannot have his cake and eat it too by withdrawing the country’s ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and have such detachment effective immediately.

Under Article 127 of the Rome Statute, the “withdrawal shall take effect one year after the date of receipt of the notification, unless the notification specifies a later date.”

The same Article provides that “Its withdrawal shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, nor shall it prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.”

The announced withdrawal cannot derail ICC’s preliminary examination of Duterte’s alleged crimes against humanity which is now on stream.

Duterte argues that the Statute’s provision on the effectivity of the Philippine withdrawal does not apply to the country as “there appears to be fraud in entering such agreement” in view of the non-observance of the principle of complementarity, due process and presumption of innocence.

These are self-serving arguments from a respondent that he can raise during the full-blown investigations or court hearings on his case.

What is crystal clear is that the withdrawal is a blatant reneging on a national commitment to international justice even as it sullies the integrity of the Philippines as a State Party not only to the Rome Statute but to the eight other core international human rights instruments ratified by the Philippines.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN