Roque’s bid for International Law Commission seat is ‘shameless hypocrisy’

The Confederation of Attorneys of Asia and the Pacific (COLAP) has opposed the nomination of President Duterte’s spokesperson/authorized adviser Harry Roque to the Intercontinental Regulation Fee (ILC), an adjunct to the United Nations whose functionality is to “initiate research and make suggestions for the intent of … encouraging the progressive enhancement of worldwide regulation and its clarification.” The multinational lawyers’ group considers Roque’s bid an unmitigated insult—a “disservice to all the victims of human legal rights violations … under the regime of President Duterte” (“Asia-Pacific lawyers’ group opposes nomination of Roque to UN fee,” Inquirer.web, 10/31/21).

Roque, with his spouse in tow, has been claimed to be in New York for some time now to strengthen his odds for election to that 34-member commission this November. He goals of remaining between the 8 fortunate lawyers from the Asia-Pacific region to be a part of the ILC for five several years at Geneva, Switzerland, and ensconced amongst other legal luminaries from all more than the world in January 2023. That journey is mentioned to be “official business,” and so all expenditures appurtenant to that “junket” are courtesy of Filipino taxpayers.

Why does Roque want to devote treasured pounds to “campaign”? Does he feel the election by the UN Typical Assembly ay puedeng daanin sa pambobola tulad dito sa Pilipinas? In his personal country, the maximum business he could ever hope to get “elected” to was as a “party list” consultant, a merciful system designed for the benefit of those who are commonly considered “unelectable.”

In the minds of numerous Filipinos, Roque has extensive gained the epithet “Palace Pinocchio” for his uncanny skill to twist the fact of practically every thing that will come involving his ears. Take into consideration the time he was fowl-dogging China’s “creeping invasion” of swaths of West Philippine Sea (WPS) territories over which global law grants exclusive economic rights to the Philippines, which led him then to excoriate China as a “rogue state.”

But just when everybody believed his patriotism was outside of question, like the quintessential chameleon, he changed his coloration and is now just about moonlighting as China’s mouthpiece, justifying its incursions into the WPS as absolutely nothing but gestures of neighborly worry and friendliness. It wouldn’t be a shock if his colleagues in the ILC (must he get elected, God forbid) are laughing at the Philippines for owning presented a single who talks out of each sides of his mouth as its greatest candidate.

But far more egregiously, although the Rome Statute that produced the Worldwide Criminal Court explicitly holds an offending head of point out accountable regardless of the latter’s government’s “withdrawal” from that covenant if the offenses complained of occurred prior to these types of withdrawal—a look at affirmed by the Philippine Supreme Courtroom alone (G.R. No. 238875, March 16, 2021)—Roque went rogue with his individual theatrical “dissent” from that unanimous choice. President Duterte should have fired him presently for his incompetence and ignorance of intercontinental law, and for the embarrassing advice he was supplying his manager all alongside.

How Roque bought so drunk with his delusions and ambition for membership in a incredibly prestigious UN entire body supplied his doubtful assert to remaining an “international legislation expert” dishing out wishy-washy viewpoints, and the flippancy with which he regards the simple tenets of international legislation when they don’t accommodate his own egocentric agenda, is beyond us. Kudos to the COLAP for possessing the balls to call Roque out publicly on his lack of particular integrity and shameless hypocrisy.

Stephen L. Monsanto, [email protected]

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