section_path: Background/Launch of the ICC investigation
section_name: Launch of the ICC investigation
paragraph_text: Launch of the ICC investigation
  
  Rodrigo Duterte was investigated by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity. The investigation covered Duterte's links to the Davao Death Squad, which is estimated to have killed at least a thousand people since the 1990s, as well as reports of extrajudicial killings of alleged drug dealers and users during his presidency, limited to the period before the Philippines withdrew from the ICC in 2019.
  
  In 2017, Filipino lawyer Jude Sabio submitted a 77-page document to the ICC titled "The Situation of Mass Murder in the Philippines", accusing President Duterte and 11 other officials of mass murder and crimes against humanity. Similarly, then-senator Antonio Trillanes and members of the Magdalo Party-List, led by then-representative Gary Alejano, filed a 45-page supplemental complaint requesting charges of crimes against humanity, supporting Sabio's earlier filing.
  
  The ICC's jurisdiction in the Philippines applies only to the period when the country was a state party to the Rome Statute (November 1, 2011 – March 16, 2019). This includes nearly three years of Duterte's presidency, during which the Philippine drug war was at its peak. The Supreme Court of the Philippines, in a 2021 ruling, commented on the withdrawal from the Rome Statute and stated that the Philippines still has an obligation to cooperate in the ICC proceedings.