The arrest of Rodrigo Duterte is a welcome sign that the rules-based order continues to hold, the Nobel laureate Maria Ressa has said, even as the global order has been marred by the US “descending into hell” at the hands of the same forces that consumed the Philippines.
Ressa’s remarks came after Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, made his first appearance before the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague, accused of committing crimes against humanity during his brutal “war on drugs”.
His arrest and the trial suggest that the thousands of victims and their families – rights groups estimate that as many as 30,000 people were killed during the years-long crackdown – may finally see justice, said Ressa. “There’s a sense that impunity ends and that the idea of an international, rules-based order can perhaps still exist.”
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