MANILA, Philippines – By the end of April, we would already know if the case against former president Rodrigo Duterte at the International Criminal Court (ICC) would go to a full-blown trial without an obstacle.

The ICC’s pre-trial chamber is due to decide on April 22 whether the crimes against humanity charges against Duterte would proceed to trial. This would be the decision on the confirmation of charges hearings last February. The standard to be used at this stage is whether the prosecution has provided substantial grounds to believe Duterte masterminded the killings as an indirect co-perpetrator.

(READ Highlights of the confirmation of charges proceedings: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4)

Should the case move to trial, the hearings will not start immediately. We are looking at end of 2026 potentially, to give all sides the time to prepare.

The ICC also announced on Thursday, April 2, that the appeals chamber will be handing out its decision on the jurisdictional challenge by April 22. Jurisdiction is Duterte’s strongest argument yet, based on the fact that the Philippines withdrew as a member of the ICC two years before the court authorized an official investigation.

Duterte lost his jurisdictional challenge in October 2025, when the pre-trial chamber said jurisdiction was preserved because the alleged crimes happened during the time that the Philippines was still a member of the court. Duterte’s lawyers elevated it to the appeals chamber, which is what’s going to be decided on this April 22. If Duterte loses the appeal, that would be the final ruling on that aspect.

The prosecution has expressed strong confidence that the case will move to trial. The jurisdiction issue is a bit more tricky, seeing that the Duterte government almost won this argument in 2023, and one of the scholars cited by the dissenting judges back then is on Duterte’s defense team.

The current appeals chamber who will decide on April 22 is composed of Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, Presiding Judge Tomoko Akane, Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa, Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze, and Judge Erdenebalsuren Damdin.

This is important to note because Judge Lordkipanidze of Georgia has decided in 2023 in favor of Duterte, or to remove jurisdiction. In that same 2023 decision, Judge Carranza of Peru and Judge Bossa of Uganda decided there was still jurisdiction. That leaves Judge Akane of Japan and Judge Damdin of Mongolia to potentially be the swing votes.

Intense internal crisis

These rulings on Duterte will be handed down against the backdrop of a very intense internal crisis involving chief prosecutor Karim Khan.

The month of April started out rough for the ICC in terms of its very controversial investigation of Khan over alleged sexual misconduct. Khan went on leave in May 2025, and has since been disqualified from the Duterte case due to conflict of interest.

Khan allegedly committed misconduct against a female staff of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). An external team of fact-finding investigators from the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) submitted their report in December 2025.

That OIOS report was forwarded to an ad hoc panel of three independent judicial experts. According to Khan’s lawyers, this judicial panel “reached a unanimous and unequivocal conclusion: that the material does not establish any misconduct or breach of duty of any kind,” they said in a statement Thursday night.

But on top of those two proceedings is the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties. ASP is the governing body of the court, made up of the member countries. Its bureau is its executive committee. Reuters and Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that the ASP’s bureau was moving ahead with disciplinary actions against Khan.

“The Prosecutor has not been informed of any decision by the Bureau,” said Khan’s lawyers Tayab Ali and Sareta Ashraph. In the same statement, Khan’s lawyers said “we have for some time raised concerns regarding apparent alignment between elements of the Bureau process and media reporting.”

There have also been previous reports about Khan’s alleged retaliatory actions against ICC staff, which the prosecutor also denied.

The misconduct probe has moved parallel into the actions he took as chief prosecutor to request the warrant against Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over the destruction of Gaza.

“The matters are complex, and the Bureau is working diligently to make its decision in a proper manner and without delay with full respect for the due process rights and privacy of all persons affected,” the ASP said in a statement on March 23.

Rappler earlier reported that when Duterte’s lead defense counsel Nicholas Kaufman, who is British-Israeli, met Khan to discuss the Duterte case, the conversation turned into the Palestine case. Kaufman told Khan in that meeting that the prosecutor “had stretched the Court to the limits.”

Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang told Rappler that any result from the Khan probe would not affect the Philippine case.

– Rappler.com