Former President Rodrigo Duterte’s camp is requesting to appeal the International Criminal Court (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber I’s decision to confirm the charges against humanity against him.

In a document dated April 29, the former president’s lead defense counsel, Atty. Nicholas Kaufman raised two appealable issues to the international court.

Kaufman stated that the Pre-Trial Chamber I “erred in law” by adopting an unacceptable “flexible” approach to the formulation of the charges, diluting the requirement that Duterte be informed of the nature, cause, and content. Moreover, the defense emphasized that the Pre-Trial Chamber relied on “irrelevant considerations.”

“As such, the Pre-Trial Chamber effectively endorsed an open-ended formulation of the charges, permitting their factual scope to remain undefined and thereby failing to delineate the parameters of the case at the confirmation stage, as required by both practice and procedure,” Kaufman argued.

The second appealable issue highlighted by the defense team states that the prosecution failed to articulate a reasoned evidentiary basis for confirming the charges. Kaufman wrote that the chamber “did not link its factual findings to the evidence nor did it engage with central defense submissions, including the absence of a common plan.”

Kaufman warned that the mentioned errors might undermine the integrity of the process and affect the fairness of proceedings.

On April 23, the chamber confirmed all charges of crimes against humanity against Duterte, after finding substantial grounds to proceed for a full trial. This development instructed the ICC Registry to transmit the ruling and complete record to its Presidency.

Earlier this week, the ICC constituted the Trial Chamber III to handle Duterte’s full case. The development follows the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I’s April 23 ruling, wherein all charges against the former president were confirmed.

A first status conference for the former president’s trial is set on May 27, 2026, the Trial Chamber III announced.