So the International Criminal Court finally gets its man, or at least its moment. Rodrigo Duterte, the former Philippine strongman who once boasted of personally killing drug suspects, will face trial on 30 November. The UK's backing of ICC jurisdiction is a reminder that for all the bluster about national sovereignty, the long arm of international law is longer than any one man's reach.
Let us be clear: this is not a story about justice alone. It is a story about the end of an era. The post-war order, with its quaint notions of universal human rights, is gasping for air. The US has withdrawn from the ICC. China and Russia scoff at it. But here comes the United Kingdom, that once and future empire, throwing its weight behind a court that prosecutes leaders from weak states. How convenient.
Duterte's trial is a morality play for our times. He is the strongman who promised order and delivered blood. His war on drugs killed thousands, maybe tens of thousands. The ICC says that constitutes crimes against humanity. Perhaps. But let us not pretend this is a clean, legal process. The court was designed to catch the little fish. The big ones, the ones with nuclear weapons or Security Council vetoes, they swim free.
Yet there is something genuinely historic here. For the first time, an Asian leader will face trial at the ICC. The Philippines, that former American colony, stands as a test case. Can international justice transcend the colonial origins of its institutions? Or is this just another episode of the West lecturing the rest?
Duterte's defenders will cry neocolonialism. They will say the ICC is a tool of Western hegemony. They are not entirely wrong. But they are also not entirely right. The victims of Duterte's war, the families of the dead, they deserve something. If not justice, then at least an accounting.
The trial will be a circus. Duterte is a showman. He will play the martyr, the nationalist, the victim of foreign meddling. And he will have a point. The ICC is selective. It is political. But so is every court. Law is always a creature of power.
What does this mean for the rest of us? It means that the era of the sovereign strongman is not quite over, but it is on notice. It means that the global order, for all its flaws, still has teeth. It means that history has not ended. It has just become more complicated.
So on 30 November, watch the proceedings. They will be ugly, messy, and profoundly human. They will remind us that justice is never pure, never simple. But it is still worth pursuing. Even if it is the pot calling the kettle black. Even if the pot has better lawyers.
Duterte will not go quietly. He will rage against the dying of the light. And the light, as always, will flicker. But it will not go out. Not yet.
