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By APD writer Melo M. Acuña
MANILA, Aug. 23 (APD) – Former Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said International Law has always been relevant to the Philippines.
Speaking at the opening ceremonies of the 7th Biennial Conference of the Asian Society of International Law (ASIL), a Law professor and current ASIL President, Atty. Roque said current affairs has always placed International Law at the center of the on-going territorial and maritime disputes in the South China Sea, the armed conflict with Maoist and Muslim separatist insurgent groups.
“We are also dealing with threats from extremist terrorist groups such as the ISIS which two years ago, nearly succeeded in establishing an ‘Islamic caliphate’ of ISIS in the Islamic City of Marawi in Mindanao,” he said. He added the Philippines recently concluded a delimitation treaty with Indonesia which he said he hopes would serve a template for delimiting the Exclusive Economic Zone considering the overlaps with neighbors as China to the north, Palau to the east, Malaysia and Indonesia to the south.
He emphasized the importance of International law due to some 14 million Filipinos residing abroad with the primary objective of the government’s foreign policy is to uphold and protect the rights of homegrown migrant workers.
He said one of the event’s co-sponsors is the University of the Philippines’ College of Law where Japanese General Yamashita was prosecuted and convicted for War Crimes committed during World War II.
“It was during these trials that it was decided that all persons accused, even if accused of the most heinous crimes, retain fundamental rights,” Atty. Roque said. He recalled a Filipina law student who later became Supreme Court Associate Justice Ameurfina Melencio-Herrera, witnessed the trials and wrote an article declaring that even war crime trials would only be a travesty of justice if the accused were not afforded the right to due process.
With General Yamashita’s trial, Atty. Roque said the Philippines gave the international precedent for the principle of legality in the prosecution of war criminals. It was on General Yamashita’s appeal to the Supreme Court where its magistrates ruled, ahead of the Nuremberg trials, that war crimes were punished by all civilized nations of the world since ancient times, even without a statute explicitly naming those crimes.
It was during Yamashita’s appeal to the United States’ Supreme Court where the principle of command responsibility was invoked on the belief Yamashita did not take steps to prevent them and to punish the perpetrators.
Atty. Roque cited other important chapters of the country’s History where International Law proved important to poor litigants, stateless citizens, and indigenous persons.
He added the conference theme, “Finding Common Solutions to Contemporary Civilizational Issues from Asian Perspectives,” is relevant.
The two-day conference will end tomorrow. Over 400 lawyers, academics and members of the diplomatic corps led by European Union’s Ambassador to Manila Franz Jesen, attended the opening rites.
[Top image: Asian Society of International Law Atty. Harry Roque (extreme left) says International Law has always played an important role in the Philippines. /Melo M. Acuna]
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
