Daily Archives: June 29, 2022

The Early Stages of Drug Prohibition

Many currently illegal drugs, such as marijuana, opium, coca, and psychedelics have been used for thousands of years for both medical and spiritual purposes. So why are some drugs legal and other drugs illegal today? It's not based on any scientific assessment of the relative risks of these drugs but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.

The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws in the early 1900s were directed at black men in the South. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans. Today, Latino and especially black communities are still subject to wildly disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing practices.

In the 1960s, as drugs became symbols of youthful rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent, the government halted scientific research to evaluate their medical safety and efficacy.

In June 1971, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants.

A top Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, later admitted: You want to know what this was really all about. The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what Im saying. We knew we couldnt make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs, pending review by a commission he appointed led by Republican Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer.

In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its recommendations.

Between 1973 and 1977, however, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession. In January 1977, President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated on a campaign platform that included marijuana decriminalization. In October 1977, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use.

Within just a few years, though, the tide had shifted. Proposals to decriminalize marijuana were abandoned as parents became increasingly concerned about high rates of teen marijuana use. Marijuana was ultimately caught up in a broader cultural backlash against the perceived permissiveness of the 1970s.

This video from hip hop legend Jay Z and acclaimed artist Molly Crabapple depicts the drug wars devastating impact on the Black community from decades of biased law enforcement.

The video traces the drug war from President Nixon to the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws to the emerging aboveground marijuana market that is poised to make legal millions for wealthy investors doing the same thing that generations of people of color have been arrested and locked up for. After you watch the video, read on to learn more about the discriminatory history of the war on drugs.

The presidency of Ronald Reagan marked the start of a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration, largely thanks to his unprecedented expansion of the drug war. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997.

Public concern about illicit drug use built throughout the 1980s, largely due to media portrayals of people addicted to the smokeable form of cocaine dubbed crack. Soon after Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, his wife, Nancy Reagan, began a highly-publicized anti-drug campaign, coining the slogan "Just Say No."

This set the stage for the zero tolerance policies implemented in the mid-to-late 1980s. Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, who believed that casual drug users should be taken out and shot, founded the DARE drug education program, which was quickly adopted nationwide despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness. The increasingly harsh drug policies also blocked the expansion of syringe access programs and other harm reduction policies to reduce the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.

In the late 1980s, a political hysteria about drugs led to the passage of draconian penalties in Congress and state legislatures that rapidly increased the prison population. In 1985, the proportion of Americans polled who saw drug abuse as the nation's "number one problem" was just 2-6 percent. The figure grew through the remainder of the 1980s until, in September 1989, it reached a remarkable 64 percent one of the most intense fixations by the American public on any issue in polling history. Within less than a year, however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest. The draconian policies enacted during the hysteria remained, however, and continued to result in escalating levels of arrests and incarceration.

Although Bill Clinton advocated for treatment instead of incarceration during his 1992 presidential campaign, after his first few months in the White House he reverted to the drug war strategies of his Republican predecessors by continuing to escalate the drug war. Notoriously, Clinton rejected a U.S. Sentencing Commission recommendation to eliminate the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences.

He also rejected, with the encouragement of drug czar General Barry McCaffrey, Health Secretary Donna Shalalas advice to end the federal ban on funding for syringe access programs. Yet, a month before leaving office, Clinton asserted in a Rolling Stone interview that "we really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment" of people who use drugs, and said that marijuana use "should be decriminalized."

At the height of the drug war hysteria in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a movement emerged seeking a new approach to drug policy. In 1987, Arnold Trebach and Kevin Zeese founded the Drug Policy Foundation describing it as the loyal opposition to the war on drugs. Prominent conservatives such as William Buckley and Milton Friedman had long advocated for ending drug prohibition, as had civil libertarians such as longtime ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser. In the late 1980s they were joined by Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Federal Judge Robert Sweet, Princeton professor Ethan Nadelmann, and other activists, scholars and policymakers.

In 1994, Nadelmann founded The Lindesmith Center as the first U.S. project of George Soros Open Society Institute. In 2000, the growing Center merged with the Drug Policy Foundation to create the Drug Policy Alliance.

George W. Bush arrived in the White House as the drug war was running out of steam yet he allocated more money than ever to it. His drug czar, John Walters, zealously focused on marijuana and launched a major campaign to promote student drug testing. While rates of illicit drug use remained constant, overdose fatalities rose rapidly.

The era of George W. Bush also witnessed the rapid escalation of the militarization of domestic drug law enforcement. By the end of Bush's term, there were about 40,000 paramilitary-style SWAT raids on Americans every year mostly for nonviolent drug law offenses, often misdemeanors. While federal reform mostly stalled under Bush, state-level reforms finally began to slow the growth of the drug war.

Politicians now routinely admit to having used marijuana, and even cocaine, when they were younger. When Michael Bloomberg was questioned during his 2001 mayoral campaign about whether he had ever used marijuana, he said, "You bet I did and I enjoyed it." Barack Obama also candidly discussed his prior cocaine and marijuana use: "When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently that was the point."

Public opinion has shifted dramatically in favor of sensible reforms that expand health-based approaches while reducing the role of criminalization in drug policy.

Marijuana reform has gained unprecedented momentum throughout the Americas. Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and theDistrict of Columbia have legalized marijuana for adults. In December 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legally regulate marijuana. Canada legalized marijuana for adults in 2018.

In response to a worsening overdose epidemic, dozens of U.S. states passed laws to increase access to the overdose antidote, naloxone, as well as 911 Good Samaritan laws to encourage people to seek medical help in the event of an overdose.

Yet the assault on American citizens and others continues, with 700,000 people still arrested for marijuana offenses each year and almost 500,000 people still behind bars for nothing more than a drug law violation.

President Obama, despite supporting several successful policy changes such as reducing the crack/powder sentencing disparity, ending the ban on federal funding for syringe access programs, and ending federal interference with state medical marijuana laws did not shift the majority of drug policy funding to a health-based approach.

The Trump administration threatened to take us backward toward a 1980s-style drug war. President Trump started building a wall to keep drugs out of the country, and called for harsher sentences for drug law violations and the death penalty for people who sell drugs. He also resurrected disproven just say no messaging aimed at youth.

2020 brought the additional challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic a public health crisis that exposed the systemic issues within our society and revealed just how deeply the drug war permeates these systems. People who interact with these systems are unable to take the most basic of steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 including those in jail or prison, the homeless, people with substance use disorder, those who rely on access to medication-assisted treatment or medical marijuana, and immigrants. During this crisis, it is harder for them to engage in social distancing, and to access necessary medication assisted treatment such as methadone or buprenorphine, or medical marijuana as well as other health and harm reduction resources.

Despite these obstacles, we at the Drug Policy Alliance pushed forward with monumental drug policy reforms in the 2020 elections.In a historic, paradigm-shifting win and arguably the biggest blow to the war on drugs to date,Oregon voters passed Measure 110, the nations first all-drug decriminalization measure.This confirms a substantial shift in public support in favor of treating drug use with health services rather than with criminalization.

Marijuana reform also won big.Voters in Arizona, New Jersey, Montana, and South Dakota passed measures to legalize marijuana for adult use. It was also a historic year for medical marijuana, with victories in Mississippi and South Dakota.

All across the country, in liberal states and conservative ones, people made their voices heard. And they said loud and clear that it is time to end the drug war.

Now Joe Biden is President of the United States and with every new administration brings new opportunities.

Biden has stated that it was a mistake to support legislation that ramped up the drug war and increased incarceration, including the '94 crime bill, when he was in the U.S. Senate. He now says we need a compassionate approach to problematic drug use.

At the Drug Policy Alliance, we agree. And were ready to make change. We look forward to working together on a humane approach to drugs that reduces the role of criminalization and increases access to health based treatment and harm reduction services for people who need them.

We look forward to a future where drug policies are shaped by science and compassion rather than political hysteria.

Learn about DPA's victories in marijuana reform, criminal justice reform, and harm reduction.

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A History of the Drug War | Drug Policy Alliance

The punitive, prohibitionist war on drugs helped prolong Colombias disastrous civil war, the countrys truth commission has found, in a landmark report published on Tuesday as part of an effort to heal the raw wounds left by conflict.

The report, titled There is a future if there is truth was the first instalment of a study put together by the commission that was formed as part of a historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

That deal formally ended five decades of civil war that killed more than 260,000 people and forced seven million from their homes. Other leftist rebel groups, state-aligned paramilitaries and Colombias security forces contributed to the bloodshed, with atrocities committed on all sides.

The violence has affected all sectors of Colombian society from political and business elites to rural peasant farmers with drug money funding insurgents, paramilitaries and corrupt politicians. The poorest farmers have often been forced either economically or at the barrel of a gun to grow coca, the base ingredient used to make cocaine.

But the report found that the union of the interests of United States and Colombia led to the construction of Plan Colombia, a massive multibillion-dollar military aid programme that began in 2000, which merged together the counter-insurgency, anti-terrorist and anti-narcotics programmes with the war against narco-terrorism.

The report found that a substantial change in drug policy should be implemented and that a transition to the regulation of drug markets should follow, while also placing some of the blame at the US, who funded Colombias armed forces during the war.

We cannot postpone, as we did after millions of victims, the day when peace is a duty and a mandatory right, as expressed in our constitution, said Francisco de Roux, the truth commissions president at a ceremony in Bogot.

The report called for major changes to Colombias military and police forces, which have received more than $8bn from the US over the past two decades.

It said the militarys objectives should be re-evaluated and all human rights violations committed by security forces should be tried by civilian courts instead of falling under the military justice system.

Like many victims of the conflict, ngela Mara Escobar celebrated the launch of the report as a chance for Colombia to heal after decades of bitter war. Escobar survived sexual violence at the hands of members of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (or AUC), a now-defunct rightwing paramilitary organisation.

Its vital that all Colombians, and the whole world, truly understand what happened during the conflict, which affected so many families and so much of society, said Escobar, who now runs an organisation for female victims of the conflict.

The report also made policy recommendations which could be picked up by the incoming administration of president-elect Gustavo Petro, including reforming the armed forces, the creation of a ministry for reconciliation, and the protection of human rights defenders from political violence.

Petro the first leftist ever elected head of state in Colombia will take office on 7 August. He was a guerrilla fighter with the M-19 militia in his youth and is a firm supporter of the peace process with the Farc.

The leftwing firebrand attended the launch ceremony in Bogot on Tuesday morning, along with his vice president-elect, Francia Mrquez, who was forced to flee her home during the conflict. She will be the first black woman to fill the post.

Outgoing president Ivn Duque, a sceptic of the deal who has been accused of slow-walking its implementation to undermine it, was in Portugal for the United Nations ocean conference.

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War on drugs prolonged Colombias decades-long civil war, landmark report finds - The Guardian

In 2014, a Phoenix cop killed 34-year-oldRumain Brisbon. Police got a tip that Brisbon was selling drugs, so they went to find him. When Brisbon tried to pull what officers said they thought was a gun from his pocket, they opened fire. Only he didn't have a gun at all just a bottle of oxycodone.

This is not an unusual story for anyone paying attention to the news in America over the last 50 years. Brisbon was one of countless casualties of our ill-conceived War on Drugs. We occasionally catch the names of collateral damage Breonna Tayloris a notable example but for the most part, we've accepted the constant buzz of unnecessary assault, state-sanctioned home invasions, robbery and death as background noise. The War on Drugs is awar,after all, and we can't be expected to monitor every injustice in war,can we?

By now, it is widely accepted that the American drug war has been a colossal failure. Mainstream conservatives like theKoch brothersadmit that our continued obsession with drug crime has had "huge negative manifestations, not only for the individuals who get trapped in that system, but also for society." Even the most fringeGOP fascist looniesnow support legalization of cannabis. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see drug incarceration ratescontinue to fall.

Ah, but the prisons are still standing, and the prisons demand bodies.

But do we think these bodies, without more, will meet the needs of the insatiable criminal-industrial complex? Surely not.

Enter the War on Abortion. Elective abortion is now functionally illegal in more than 20 states. In those states, the mechanisms used to keep providers in check will be those we utilize to deal with all other crimes: police, courts and prisons. At a bare minimum, we can expect that those caught aiding and abetting anyone who seeks abortion care will have their houses raided by SWAT teams, their personal effects scattered about, their bodiestwisted and mangled, theirpets killedand their freedom summarily revoked. The patients themselves are not safe either, no matter how much mainstream anti-choice groups claim they have "never advocated for penalties for women." Women have already been charged with murder, feticide and manslaughter for miscarriages. We'll see more of that.

RELATED:What the anti-abortion movement wants next and how we can respond

But do we think these bodies, without more, will meet the needs of the insatiable criminal-industrial complex? Surely not. A War on Abortion, like a War on Drugs, is an ever-expanding concept, something that adapts to claim as many victims as possible. Even now, the idea that IUDs and Plan B should fall into the category of "abortion" has worked itself intomainstream conservative thought. And if those are valid targets of the War on Abortion, why not synthetic estrogen and progesterone pills? Why not spermicidal lubricant? Why not barrier methods like diaphragms and condoms? Why notonanism?

God forbid the feds get in on this, but if the GOP ever takes control of both houses of Congress again, that's exactly what will happen. Now that the courts are out of the way, nothing would stop a Republican Congress from passing a 50-state ban on abortion that will supersede whatever "safe harbor" laws blue states put in place. Then the anti-choice movement will have fully coopted the machinery used to create so much misery during the Drug War era. You can be sure they will use it. Perhaps the FBI will form an Abortion Crimes Task Force. Perhaps the Customs and Border Patrol will establish an elite Abortion Travel Enforcement unit. Perhaps an entirely new agency, like the DEA, will be necessary to police all the "abortion" happening everywhere a Reproduction Enforcement Agency.

RELATED:How will laws against abortion be enforced? Other countries offer chilling examples

Like their drug warrior predecessors, these abortion warriors will make sure the prisons stay full for yet another generation.

A new war on American soil will help ensure the continued employment of the boys in blue, too. If millions of law enforcement officers could be conscripted into kicking in doors to private homes and killing people over a bag of marijuana or a bottle of Xanax, it should be even easier to find soldiers for the War on Abortion. What more noble cause could there be than saving innocent babies? Like their drug-warrior predecessors, these abortion warriors will make sure the prisons stay full for yet another generation.

Back in 1989, Justice Thurgood Marshalldenouncedwhat he called the "drug exception to the Constitution," referring to the idea that the courts tend to turn the other way when individuals fall victim to the nebulous crusade of the War on Drugs. The Bill of Rights, international human rights standards, our communities' norms and mores, any basic notions of decency; these are all pushed aside to make way for the mass grave we've dug in the name of stamping out narcotics. There is every reason to think that the same atrocities and worse will happen when the government fully commits to the War on Abortion. There is no fantasy too dystopian, no prediction too bleak, no outlook too pessimistic for what lies ahead.

RELATED:The end of Roe v. Wade: American democracy is collapsing

The cop who shot Rumain Brisbon never faced criminal charges for his death. I never heard Brisbon's name until I sat down to write this, or if I did, I don't remember it. I likely will have forgotten it again by next week. When the War on Abortion claims its casualties from the periphery of what reasonable people might call "abortion," will we care any more than we did during the War on Drugs? When the 100th person is shot grasping a bottle of birth control pills, will we remember her name? It seems unlikely.

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The right's war on abortion will become the new War on Drugs - Salon

MANILA, Philippines Developments continue to unfold at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the killings under the violent war on drugs, a key policy under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte.

Government data shows that at least 6,252 people have died at the hands of the police during anti-illegal drug operations as of May 31, 2022. This tally does not include victims of vigilante-style killings, which human rights groups estimate to pull the number up to around 30,000.

Documents obtained by Rappler, however, show that the Philippine National Police (PNP) already recorded 7,884 deaths between July 1, 2016 to August 31, 2020.

Families, human rights groups, and other stakeholders bank on the ICC to bring justice to the thousands of victims, as domestic mechanisms prove to be ineffective in what appears to be a futile quest for accountability.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), mandated by the 1987 Philippine Constitution to investigate state abuses, was stonewalled by the Duterte government in its own probes a recurring treatment even among other groups that try to assist families of victims.

What has happened with the ICC proceedings so far? Rappler lists key events involving the ICC and Dutertes war on drugs. We will update this timeline as new information comes in.

Then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says her office is keeping an eye on the incidents in the Philippines as the number of deaths in drug war operations continues to rise almost four months into the Duterte administration.

In a statement, she says her office will be closely following the developments and record any instance of incitement or resort to violence with a view to assessing whether a preliminary examination into the situation of the Philippines needs to be opened.

Without naming any official, Bensouda also warns that any person in the Philippines who incites or engages in acts of mass violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing, in any other manner, to the commission of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC is potentially liable to prosecution before the Court.

Duterte threatens to withdraw the Philippines from being a member-state of the ICC.

He calls the international court useless, saying it really is unable to help small countries. This would be the first of many instances when the President would publicly threaten and insult the ICC, including its officials.

Filipino lawyer Jude Sabio files a communication before the ICC over the repeatedly, unchangingly, and continuously mass murder in the Philippines.

He requests the court to commit [Duterte] and his senior government officials to the Trial Chamber for trial and that the Trial Chamber in turn, after trial, convict them and sentence them to corresponding prison sentence or life imprisonment.

Sabio was the lawyer of self-confessed Davao Death Squad (DDS) member Edgar Matobato, who was the first to publicly come out to accuse Duterte of being behind the killings in Davao City as mayor.

In the documents filed, Sabio says he has direct proof beyond reasonable doubt that Duterte continued these killings at the national level.

Sabio would later withdraw his communication in January 2020, but experts point out this will not affect the ongoing proceedings. He dies on April 12, 2021 due to cardiac arrest.

Then-senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Magdalo representative Gary Alejano file supplemental communication before the ICC urging Bensouda to initiate a preliminary examination to provide a glimmer of hope for the thousands of victims that Dutertes impunity would soon end.

The 45-page document the two submitted highlight Dutertes violent rhetoric, including various pronouncements in which he ordered the killings of suspected drug personalities.

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor announces that it has initiated a preliminary examination to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to establish that the case falls under the courts jurisdiction.

In a statement, Bensouda says her office has decided to pursue this move following a careful, independent, and impartial review of communications and reports documenting alleged crimes.

Then-presidential spokesperson Harry Roque says Duterte welcomes this move because he is sick and tired of being accused of thecommission of crimes against humanity.

Duterte announces that the Philippines will withdraw as a member-state of the ICC. In a written statement, the President says he is withdrawing [the countrys] ratification of the Rome Statute effective immediately.

But the Rome Statute, the ICCs founding document, explicitly states that withdrawal shall only take effect one year after the date of receipt of the notification. Ceasing to be a member-state will also not affect criminal investigations and proceedings that have been started before the withdrawal came into effect.

The Philippine government formally submits to the United Nations its written notice of withdrawal from the ICC. In the letter, the government says its decision to withdraw reflects the countrys principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights.

The transmission of the letter officially triggers the one-year waiting period before the withdrawal takes effect.

Families of drug war victims, through another submitted communication, urge then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to indict and eventually convict Duterte.

The families, convened under the Rise Up for Life and for Rights network, call for an end to madness and for [Duterte], who has likened himself to one of the most evil men in history, to be brought before the ICC and be held to account for crimes against humanity.

The human rights abuses under his administration threaten the core principles of humanity itself, subsuming individual victim experiences, and even state borders, the families add.

The Philippines officially ceases to be a member-state of the ICC, a year after the Duterte government first gave notice of its withdrawal as signatory to the Rome Statute.

While withdrawing does not hinder the ICC from moving forward with possible proceedings, it will most likely make things difficult for investigators, especially in terms of getting cooperation from the Philippine government.

Then-ICC prosecutor Bensouda says she aims to finalize her preliminary examination by 2020 so her office can reach a decision on whether to seek [authorization] to open an investigation into the situation in the Philippines.

In a report, Bensouda says her office significantly advanced its assessment since 2018, adding that they continue to monitor the situation, including reports of threats and harassment against human rights defenders.

Arturo Lascaas, former Davao City top cop and self-confessed DDS hitman, signs a Third Agreement on Limited Use of Information with the ICC. The document shows that the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) will not use as evidence against Lascaas his confessions about carrying out killings ordered by Duterte himself.

This is unprecedented and considered a first in Philippine history. International human rights lawyer Ruben Carranza says this move is a form of use immunity, while former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo says the document means that the OTP is treating the witness as an insider, although he could also be a suspect.

This development, however, only becomes public in November 2021, as part of Rapplers investigation into Duterte and the Davao Death Squad.

Bensouda says there is reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity were committed in the Philippines in connection with Dutertes war on drugs. These incidents, she points out in a report, occurred at least between July 1, 2016 to March 16, 2019 a day before the Philippines withdrawal from the ICC took effect.

Her office, however, is yet to reach a decision on whether to seek permission to open a formal investigation, given the challenges brought about by restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Families of drug war victims call on the ICC to hold Duterte accountable for allegedly impeding justice, including instances when he repeatedly threatened Bensouda and the court.

In a supplemental pleading submitted to Bensouda, mothers represented by the National Union of Peoples Lawyers say Duterte should be held accountable for his blatant attempt to pervert the course of justice by intimidating and retaliating against the officials of the [ICC].

The Supreme Court junks a petition questioning the validity of Dutertes withdrawal from the ICC, including whether he is legally required to get the concurrence of the Senate in doing such act.

The High Court, voting unanimously, dismisses the petition because it has become moot and academic.

It, however, says the government is obliged to cooperate with the ICC even if it has already withdrawn, according to the full document released months after on July 21, 2021. Despite this, Malacaang remains firm in its decision not to cooperate.

Then-ICC prosecutor Bensouda applies for authorization with the pre-trial chamber to open an investigation into the killings committed during the war on drugs and in Davao City from 2011 to 2016.

Bensouda, in a report, says extrajudicial killings, perpetrated across the Philippines, appear to have been committed pursuant to an official State policy of the Philippine government.

This move comes a day before Bensouda, who has been publicly threatened by Duterte, retires from the ICC on June 15. She is replaced by Karim Khan, who has extensive experience working in international criminal tribunals.

Families of drug war victims earlier call on Bensouda to issue a warrant of arrest against President Rodrigo Duterte and hold him while trial is ongoing.

The ICCs pre-trial chamber greenlights the investigation into Dutertes war on drugs and killings in Davao City between 2011 and 2016.

In the decision, ICC judges conclude that there is a reasonable basis for the Prosecutor to proceed with an investigation, in the sense that the crime against humanity of murder appears to have been committed.

The chamber also observes that it is also apparent that killings took place pursuant or in furtherance of a state policy.

New ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, who succeeded Bensouda, urges the Duterte government to cooperate with his office in the conduct of an investigation into the killings under the war on drugs, as well as those committed in Davao City between 2011 and 2016.

In a statement, Khan says he remains willing to constructively engage with national authorities in accordance with the principle of complementarity and our obligations under the Statute.

The investigation, he adds, seeks to uncover the truth and aims to ensure accountability, as well as focus their efforts to ensure a successful, independent, and impartial investigation.

The Duterte government formally requests the ICC to stop the ongoing investigation into the Philippine situation.

Through a letter signed by Philippine Ambassador to the Netherlands J. Eduardo Malaya, the government avails of an option available under the Rome Statute which allows it to ask the Prosecutor to defer the probe and recognize working domestic mechanisms.

ICC Prosecutor Khan announces that his office will temporarily suspend its investigation into the drug war killings in the Philippines but assures the public they will continue its analysis of information already in its possession as well as new information it may receive.This move to pause the probe is a matter of procedure.

ICC Prosecutor Khan says they will ask the Duterte administration for proof that it is genuinely investigating the killings under the violent war on drugs.

In a statement, he says that such information must consist of tangible evidence, of probative value and a sufficient degree of specificity, demonstrating that concrete and progressive investigative steps have been or are currently being undertaken to ascertain the responsibility of persons for alleged conduct falling within the scope of the authorized ICC investigation.

Khan files a request before the ICC pre-trial chamber seeking to resume his offices investigation into the killings under Dutertes war on drugs and those committed in Davao City between 2011 and 2016. In a 53-page document, Khan says information collated by his office does not demonstrate that concrete and progressive steps have been taken or are being taken by the competent national authorities.

He adds that the government failed to show that any individual has been probed for ordering, planning, or instigating the killings. He also says there is no indication that domestic authorities are investigating the alleged systematic nature of these and other killings.

Khan also says the inter-agency drug war review panel does not appear to possess powers or authority independent of the [Department of Justice] or have any specific investigative function. What the DOJ-led panel did appears to be a mere desk review that by itself does not constitute investigative activity.

In response, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra says he respects Khans view but that he should have waited for our efforts to bear some fruit.

He added: An investigation of this magnitude and complexity cannot be finished in a few months. Rappler.com

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TIMELINE: The International Criminal Court and Duterte's bloody war on drugs - Rappler