Amnesty International Philippines executive director Ritz Lee Santos III stated: “We are deeply alarmed at the obstruction of justice and chaotic scenes witnessed at the Philippines Senate… It is hugely concerning that fellow Senators and others appear to have assisted him in evading arrest and in delaying the execution of the arrest warrant—effectively facilitating his escape for now.”

The ICC confirmed on May 11 that it issued an arrest warrant for dela Rosa. The senator is charged as an indirect co-perpetrator of the crime against humanity of systematic murder under Article 7(1)(a) of the Rome Statute, stemming from his connection to former President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs.”

The warrant against dela Rosa was issued confidentially in November 2025. Rumors subsequently spread that the ICC was building a case against dela Rosa, as well as seven other co-perpetrators of Duterte’s campaign of murder war. Following these reports, dela Rosa disappeared from public view. He re-emerged May 11 to participate in a consequential Senate leadership vote. He apparently fled the chamber after spotting Philippine government agents waiting to arrest him, and spent two days barricaded in the Senate building. The senator escaped the building after gunfire erupted on May 13. No casualties have been reported, but his present whereabouts are now unknown.

The senator, who previously served as chief of the Philippine National Police, is considered a close ally of Duterte. The former president was arrested in March based on an ICC warrantand has had his charges confirmed, thus clearing the way for the opening of the trial process. Duterte is also accused of crimes against humanity stemming from the “war on drugs,” during which death squads were allegedly used in the extrajudicial killing of tens of thousands of suspected narcotics dealers and users since 2016, many of whom were minors.

The specific allegations cited by the dela Rosa arrest warrant are that under his command, “Philippines’ law enforcement, sometimes with the assistance of persons who were not part of the police such as non-police assets and paid hitmen, killed no less than 32 persons—alleged criminals, such as alleged thieves, or people allegedly involved in drug-related activities—at various locations in the Philippines.” While the case focuses on these 32 deaths, the actual toll during dela Rosa’s service in Duterte’s anti-drug drive is believed to number in the thousands.

Human Rights Watch has praised the case against Duterte, stating: “The ICC case reflects the determination of victims and their families to advance justice against all odds and dangers.”

The Philippines was a signatory to the Rome Statute from November 2011 until March 2019, when its withdrawal took effect. Despite the Philippines’ withdrawal from the treaty, the ICC maintains jurisdiction over international crimes committed within the country between November 1, 2011, and March 16, 2019. The charges against dela Rosa concern his time as the chief of the National Police from July 2016 to April 2018.

From JURIST, May 15. Used with permission. Internal links added.

The Duterte case is discussed in our podcast “Trump to The Hague! III”

Photo: Tony Webster via Wikimedia Commons

Türk criticized the growing trend of the government’s infringement on the fundamental right to freedom of expression, stating:

Restrictions on fundamental freedoms must remain exceptional, grounded in clear law, be necessary and proportionate to pursue a legitimate objective, non-discriminatory and accompanied by due process and effective judicial oversight. Upholding the rule of law in Tunisia requires stronger institutional safeguards, the protection of civic space, and inclusive, rights based legislative reform, in line with the country’s international human rights commitments.

The government’s ongoing crackdown on the media has seen the enactment of dangerously vague laws filled with ambiguous provisions, Türk said. Such provisions, which lack adequate specificity and internationally-mandated legal safeguards, have been weaponized by authorities, leading to selective enforcement. For instance, in late April, journalist Zied El Heni was arrested and charged under a new law that criminalizes the use of telecommunication networks to “harm others.”

The main issue with this law is that no guidance has been provided as to what the word “harm” constitutes, or what degree of commission of harm would fall under the scope of the statute. This can be clearly seen in another case last year, in which 28 journalists, including Mourad Zghidi, were arrested and sentenced for exhibiting conduct that fell under the broad scope of a 2022 law that ostensibly tackles crime related to information and communication systems, but has been assailed as vaguely worded and susceptible to political weaponization.

In addition to the crackdown on media workers, Tunisian authorities have targeted members of the judicial branch of government. Charges have been brought against Judge Anas Hmedi, president of the Association of Tunisian Judges, over a protest he organized to oppose government interference in the judiciary. Judge Hammadi Rahmani was sentenced in absentia in April 2025 by a Tunisian court to three years’ imprisonment on charges of “insulting others on social media.”

The arbitrary nature of the charges against, along his violent arrest and subsequent detention, were compounded by the fact that he still had judicial immunity from criminal proceedings when the charges were first unveiled. The sustained decline of the human rights situation in the country has ensued since the events of July 2021, when President Kais Saied suspended parliament, dismissed the prime minister, and declared that he would rule by decree.

From JURIST, May 10. Used with permission.

Image: Grunge Love

Note: Activist Saber Ben Chouchane, who received a death sentence for social media posts critical of the government last year, was pardoned by President Kais Saied after an outcry from international human rights groups in October. (Al Jazeera)

The Sudan team at the Human Rights Office found that upwards of 80% of all civilian deaths from January to April—numbering at least 880—can be attributed to drone attacks. These include attacks on May 8 that killed 26 civilians in Al Quz, South Kordofan, and near El Obeid, North Kordofan.

Türk stated:

This increasing reliance on drones allows hostilities to continue unabated in the approaching rainy season, which in the past has brought about a lull in ground operations. An intensification of hostilities in the coming weeks, as the parties seek to gain or consolidate control of territory amid shifting conflict dynamics, risks hostilities expanding even further to central and eastern states, with lethal consequences for civilians across enormous areas.

Targets struck by drones include healthcare facilities, rendering hospitals inoperable, and a May 4 attack on the Khartoum International Airport that led to the disruption of all flights. The Sudanese government has accused Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) of being behind the drone strike on the Khartoum airport, and others. Military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Asim Awad Abdelwahab claims to have intelligence of four drone attacks since March 1 having originated from Ethiopia’s Bahir Dar using drones provided by the UAE.

The UAE has come under fire for supporting the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in their war against the Sudanese government. The conflict in Sudan erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. The conflict has been described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with the RSF facing accusations of war crimes and genocide by the UN.

From JURIST, May 11. Used with permission.

AI-generated image of various drones used in Sudan, via Sudan Tribune

Elections Alberta affirmed that it received the petition, “A Referendum Relating to Alberta Independence,” and signature sheets from a “pro-sovereignty” group, Stay Free Alberta. The group told the CBC News that it has collected over 301,000 signatures, significantly more than the 178,000 threshold. The proposed referendum will ask voters: “Do you agree that the Province of Alberta should cease to be a part of Canada to become an independent state?”

On April 10, Justice Shaina Leonard of the Alberta Court of King’s Bench granted a temporary stay, barring the Chief Electoral Officer Gordon McClure from verifying the petition. She accepted that the lack of consultation could cause irreparable harm to First Nations, including Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Piikani Nation, Siksika Nation and Blood Tribe. The First Nations welcomed the decision. Following the stay, the verification cannot take place until the court completes the judicial review.

There are other doubts on the legality of the petition. On Dec. 6, 2025, the same court heldthat the referendum proposal is unconstitutional. Justice Colin Feasby found that the proposal does not guarantee Charter rights or Aboriginal and Treaty rights to the same extent as the provided by Constitution Act, 1982. However, an amendment to the Citizen Initiative Act (CIA) came into effect on Dec. 11. It removes the provision requiring a referendum proposal to be compatible with the aforementioned rights. A “transitional provision” also ensures that the amendment applies to the referendum proposal, which predated the amendment. In granting the stay, Leonard agreed that the constitutionality of the CIA amendment and the potential applicability of the previous ruling are serious questions to be adjudicated.

Meanwhile, pro-unity group Forever Canadian claimed that it had already received over 404,000 signatures in support of the province remaining in Canada.

In related news, Elections Alberta is investigating a breach of the provincial voter list. On April 30, the authority revealed that the Republican Party of Alberta provided the voter list to a pro-sovereignty Centurion Project Ltd., which then publicized the list. While the provincial Election Act allows political parties to access the list, it strictly forbids distributing the list to a third party.

McClure said the authority was unable to investigate sooner because the recent Election Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, heightened the threshold for for opening an investigation from “grounds to warrant” to “reasonable grounds.” Similarly, the provincial privacy commissioner Diane McLeod said Alberta’s Personal Information Protection Act does not regulate political parties. They both called for reforms to their empowering statutes to strengthen accountability.

From JURIST, May 7. Used with permission.

Note: Prime Minister Mark Carney has admonished the US not to interfere in the Alberta independence drive, telling reporters in January: “We expect the US administration to respect Canadian sovereignty.” This comes in response to reports that leaders of the separatist Alberta Prosperity Project met with Trump administration officials. British Columbia Premier David Eby also sharply criticized the meetings, saying they amounted to “treason.” Carney and Eby were also responding to an aggressive online campaign—including AI-produced “slopaganda”—in support of Alberta becoming the “51st state.” However, while much of this propaganda comes from the US, reports indicate that some of it is being produced in Russia as well. (Politico, El Pais, NBC, The Hill, CBC, CBC)

See our podcast, “MAGA-fascism and the struggle in Canada”

Photo: Magalie L’Abbe via Alberta Politics

The organizations report that the administration in April re-arrested and forcibly transferred to third countries people who had previously been granted withholding of removal by US immigration judges and had prevailed on habeas petitions challenging the legality of their detention. The report documents an attempted transfer of individuals to Libya last year in violation of a court order then in effect.

Approximately 16,000 of the documented transfers have been to Mexico. That figure includes thousands of individuals the administration failed to acknowledge in a March 5 disclosure to a federal court. Roughly 1,400 additional people have been sent to 20 other countries, including Eswatini, South Sudan and Uganda. A March 2026 agreement with Costa Rica provides for regular weekly transfers.

The tracker reports that the administration has paid at least $44 million to receiving governments in connection with the agreements and has used the threat of third-country transfer to pressure detained immigrants into abandoning their legal claims.

Separately, the tracker reports that government attorneys have filed motions to “pretermit,” or dismiss without merits review, thousands of pending asylum cases in immigration court on the basis of Asylum Cooperative Agreements with Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Uganda. Citing data compiled by immigration advocacy group Mobile Pathways from Executive Office for Immigration Review records, the tracker counts nearly 9,500 such pretermissions as of February 2026. The following month, the Department of Homeland Security directed Immigration & Customs Enforcement attorneys to stop filing new pretermission motions but did not withdraw those already pending.

The administration has invoked a range of statutory and constitutional authorities to justify the transfers, including the Alien Enemies Act, and the suspension-of-entry provision at 8 U.S.C. § 1182(f). Federal judges have held several uses of those authorities unlawful, including in challenges to expulsions of Venezuelans to El Salvador and to forced transfers of people with final removal orders carried out without notice or an opportunity to raise fear-based claims.

From JURIST, May 5. Used with permission.

See our last report on the third-country deportations.

See our podcast “MAGA-fascism and the struggle in Libya”

Photo: Venezuelan deportees in Honduras. Credit: ICE via Wikimedia Commons

Syria’s Interior Ministry announced May 8 the arrest of deposed regime brigadier Khardal Ahmad Dayyub (Dioub), a former head of Air Force Intelligence in Daraa, for his involvement in systematic human rights violations committed against civilians. Dayyub is accused of running an “assassination committee” in Daraa, as well as involvement in the chemical attacks on Eastern Ghouta during his later service in the Damascus regional branch. He is also said to have had a key role in coordination with Hezbollah and Iranian forces in Syria that were introduced to back up the Bashar Assad dictatorship. (SANA)

Despite some confusion in the reportage (e.g. Anadolu Agency), Dayyub appears to be implicated in the 2018 chemical attack in Eastern Ghouta, not the far deadlier 2013 chemical attack in Ghouta, which resulted in threats of US military intervention.

Photo: SANA

See our last report on Hong Kong’s National Security Law.

Photo: antha26/Pixabay via JURIST

The alarming reports that Nigeria has established “concentration camps” for the Fulani ethnic minority cast an ironic light on Nigeria’s tension with the Sahel states of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to the north. These three regimes have broken from the Western imperial camp (to embrace the nascent Russian imperial camp)—but are likewise subjecting their Fulani minorities to persecution and massacre. With the recent shock rebel offensive in Mali, the “terrorist” stigma that attaches to the Fulani and Tuareg peoples across the imperial camps makes their position more precarious than ever. Meanwhile, prominent voices on the both the right and the (supposed) “left” are spreading propaganda about the struggle in West Africa that is alarmingly wrong, because it exclusively views the crisis through a campist lens. In Episode 327 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg tries to provide some clarity on these fast-escalating and grossly under-reported conflicts.

Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon.

Production by Chris Rywalt

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Presiding Judge Kimberly Prost, in ICC’s Trial Chamber X, delivered the Reparations Order in the presence of Al Hassan and his defense team. Prost stated that the estimated number of victims amounted to 65,202. The Chamber ruled that “collective community-based reparations” were “appropriate to address the…type of harm suffered by the victims.” Prost outlined that this mode of reparations would “reach large numbers of victims in a less resource-intensive manner.” Al Hassan will “bear financial liability” for the reparations.

The Chamber emphasized the impact of Al Hassan’s crimes on girls and women in particular. Prost stated: “Women and girls suffered particular moral and material harm… This should be reflected in the planning, design, and implementation of all socio-economic rehabilitation projects and initiatives.”

In outlining costs, the Chamber ordered an estimated total of €4 million towards socio-economic and educational support programs, €1.2 million towards collective community-based psychological rehabilitation measures, €1.5 million for a limited individualized component, and €550,000 towards symbolic and satisfaction measures. The total liability for the harm caused to victims amounted to €7,250,000.

Al Hassan was convicted in June 2024 for crimes against humanity, including “torture, persecution, and other inhumane acts,” and the war crimes of “torture, outrages upon personal dignity, mutilation, cruel treatment and passing sentences without previous judgement pronounced by a regularly constituted court.” The ICC sentenced Al Hassan to 10 years of imprisonment on November 2024.

Crimes against humanity are prohibited under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and are considered by the ICC as “among the most serious of crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.” War crimes are prohibited under Article 8 of the Rome Statute.

From JURIST, April 30. Used with permission.

Note: Al Hassan is among 13 ICC convictions. Another militant, Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, pleaded guilty to cultural crimes in the destruction of Sufi shrines in Timbuktu.

Photo: WikiMedia Commons

The hearings, scheduled to run from May 4-11 at the Peace Palace in The Hague, mark the most consequential phase yet in a case Guyana filed in March 2018 seeking a final, binding ruling that the Arbitral Award of 1899, which established the boundary between what was then the colony of British Guiana and Venezuela, remains valid under international law. Guyana opened proceedings with its first round of oral arguments. Venezuela is expected to present its arguments next week.

The dispute dates to the second half of the nineteenth century, when the United Kingdom and Venezuela both claimed the territory between the Essequibo and Orinoco rivers. An international tribunal of British, American and Russian arbitrators unanimously awarded the territory to British Guiana in 1899, and a subsequent 1905 boundary agreement adhered to that decision. Venezuela accepted the boundary for more than 60 years before reversing its position on the eve of Guyana’s independence in 1966, arguing that the award was a product of collusion between British and Russian arbitrators.

The ICJ already ruled twice that it has jurisdiction to hear the case. In December 2020, the court affirmed its jurisdiction, and in April 2023 it rejected Venezuela’s preliminary objectionto admissibility, clearing the path to the current merits phase. The court also issued provisional measures ordering Venezuela to refrain from any action that would alter Guyana’s administration and control of the disputed territory. In May 2025, the court strengthened those measures by ordering Venezuela not to conduct or prepare elections in the region.

Venezuela has repeatedly defied the court’s authority. In December 2023, the Venezuelan government held a consultative referendum in which voters endorsed the creation of a “Guayana Esequiba” state. In April 2024, President Nicolas Maduro promulgated an “Organic Law in Defense of Guayana Esequiba,” purporting to formally incorporate the Essequibo into Venezuelan territory, create administrative units for oil and mineral exploitation there, and establish legislative and executive offices. Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodriguez, who assumed the role after the US military operation that led to Maduro’s capture earlier this year, stated in August 2025 that Venezuela would ignore the ICJ’s final ruling.

Tensions mounted in the weeks leading up to the hearings. Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali wrote to Caribbean Community (CARICOM) chairman Terrance Drew protesting a brooch worn by Rodriguez during visits to Grenada and Barbados that depicted a map of Venezuela including Essequibo, calling it a “calculated and provocative assertion” of Venezuela’s territorial claim. CARICOM cautioned member states against using diplomatic engagements within the Community to legitimize claims currently before the court.

Guyana’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the country approaches the hearings with full confidence in the strength of its case. The government has received support from CARICOM, the Commonwealth, the European Union, and the Organization of American States. Guyana currently produces approximately 750,000 barrels of oil per day, largely from reserves in and around the Essequibo region, making the court’s eventual ruling one of the highest-stakes territorial decisions in recent ICJ history.

From JURIST, May 4. Used with permission.

See also our podcast “Geopolitics of the Essequibo dispute”

Map: Google