ICC confirms crimes-against-humanity charges against Rodrigo Duterte, sends case to trial

The International Criminal Court on Thursday confirmed all crimes-against-humanity charges against former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and sent the case to trial, the biggest legal step yet toward accountability over his deadly anti-drug campaign.

The ruling means ICC judges found “substantial grounds” to believe Duterte committed the crimes charged, the threshold required to move a case from pretrial proceedings to a full trial. It is not a conviction or a finding of guilt. The decision nonetheless marks a major milestone in a case that victims’ families and rights groups have pushed for over years of alleged killings linked to the drug war.

The prosecution’s public charging document, dated Feb. 13, 2026, accuses Duterte of crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder under the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the court. Prosecutors allege a charged period spanning from Nov. 1, 2011, to March 16, 2019, covering both his time as mayor of Davao and later as president of the Philippines.

The document alleges Duterte is criminally responsible under a theory of indirect co-perpetration and grounds the case in 76 murders and two attempted murders. Those incidents are divided into three counts: 19 victims tied to the Davao mayoral period; 14 victims described as high-value targets during the presidential period; and 45 victims, including 43 murders and two attempted murders, in barangay clearance operations. Those 76 killings and two attempted killings are the incidents used to support the charges, not the court’s estimate of the full death toll of Duterte’s anti-drug campaign.

Duterte was arrested in the Philippines under an ICC warrant issued on March 7, 2025, and later made public. He was surrendered to the court on March 12, 2025, and first appeared before ICC judges in The Hague on March 14, 2025. The confirmation hearing, a public proceeding at which judges assess whether the prosecution has enough evidence to send a case to trial, was held from Feb. 23 to 27, 2026.

The case has also turned on whether the ICC still has authority after the Philippines withdrew from the Rome Statute. On Wednesday, the court’s Appeals Chamber rejected the defense’s jurisdictional appeal and upheld the ICC’s jurisdiction, including against arguments linked to that withdrawal. The court’s position is that it retains jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while the Philippines was still a state party. Separately, the defense had challenged Duterte’s fitness to take part in proceedings, but the ICC ruled on Jan. 26 that he was fit for pretrial proceedings and rejected a request for an indefinite adjournment. Since his surrender, Duterte has remained in ICC detention in The Hague pending proceedings.

Rights group Amnesty International said the ruling “pav[es] the way for full trial proceedings” and called it “a historic moment for victims and international justice.” Ritz Lee Santos of Amnesty International Philippines said: “Families of victims and survivors of the ‘war on drugs’ have waited far too long for justice.” Amnesty also urged the court to ensure victims can participate in the case and that witnesses are protected as the trial phase begins. The broader scale of the anti-drug campaign was far larger than the incidents listed in the charging document: the U.N. human rights office reported in 2020 that at least 8,663 people had been killed in anti-drug operations by 2019.