MANILA – The International Criminal Court (ICC) is currently determining whether they have a jurisdiction on the communication filed against Chinese President Xi Jinping by some former Filipino officials.
Lawyer Anne Marie Corominas said the ICC office of the prosecutor informed complainants – former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and former Foreign Affairs secretary Albert del Rosario – on the status of their communication via email.
“They were analyzing the allegations identified in the communication with the assistance of other related communications and other information available,” Corominas said.
“The purpose of the analysis is to see if the alleged crimes are within the jurisdiction,” Corominas added. “But that meaningful analysis… can take some time.”
Xi and other Chinese officials allegedly committed crimes against humanity in implementing Beijing’s “systematic plan to control the South China Sea,” Carpio-Morales and del Rosario said.
It was during del Rosario’s time as top Philippine diplomat that the country brought China before a United Nations-backed arbitral tribunal in 2013 for incursions in the country’s exclusive economic zone within the disputed South China Sea.
The tribunal, based in The Hague, invalidated China’s 9-dash line claim over the waters and recognized traditional fishing rights of Filipinos in the Scarborough Shoal, an area where Beijing’s patrol ships shooed away Filipino fishermen.
The Philippines and China have long quarreled about the South China Sea, but the relations improved under President Rodrigo Duterte, who set aside the 2016 landmark legal victory for enhanced ties. /PN
