ICC warrant vs Putin ‘fair warning’ to those who deny justice to drug war victims – Hontiveros

MANILA, Philippines – Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros said on Saturday, March 18, that the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin should serve as “fair warning” to those who have continued to deny justice to drug war victims in the Philippines.

“I can only hope that there is something to be learned from this. To those who continue to deny justice to victims of state-sponsored abuses, including the excesses of a failed Drug War, consider this fair warning. ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice,'” she said in a statement.

On Friday, March 17, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes committed in Ukraine.

While Moscow had brushed aside the arrest warrant, Hontiveros shared the view that it “is a strong message to the global community that the world will not idly watch while war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity are being committed within territories of individual countries.”

“Moscow may continue to argue that the warrants are moot, but member-states to the ICC are dutybound to arrest those upon whom warrants are served when they come into the territory of an ICC member-state. This already severely curtails movement of perpetrators. Further, Kyiv has accepted the jurisdiction of the ICC over crimes on its territory,” she said.

“And who knows if a future Kremlin leader decides that it is in their interest to give up Putin to the ICC. ‘Di ba ito ang nangyari kay Slobodan Milosevic (Isn’t this what happened to Slobodan Milosevic)?” she added.

The ICC had earlier announced that the pre-trial chamber authorized the resumption of the investigation into killings under the bloody drug war of former president Rodrigo Duterte. The Philippine government, through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), has urged the body to suspend its probe. – Rappler.com