AS an international treaty, the Rome Statute is powered by the consent of States, a fundamental principle of international law. Moreover, its whole normative framework is built on respect for State sovereignty, the cornerstone of international law and the guiding principle behind peaceful international relations, as recalled by the UN Charter itself. For example, there are only limited possibilities for the court to exercise jurisdiction when non-State parties are involved, and, even for State parties, there is for example the recognition that States cannot be compelled to violate their other obligations under international law (Article 98). More fundamentally, the heart of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is complementarity with national courts. In other words, the ICC is designed as a court of last resort, the function of which is not to judge domestic legal systems, like a human rights court might do.
One of the consequences of this respect for national sovereignty is that a State is free to be bound or not by a particular treaty. It is in recognition of this need to respect sovereignty that the Rome Statute provides for the possibility for a State party to withdraw from the treaty, following a certain procedure (Article 127). And this is what the Philippines sovereignly chose to do on March 17, 2018, with the withdrawal taking effect on March 17, 2019.
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