Commentary 25/03/20 Duterte’s ICC arrest: Where to for Cambodia’s Hun Sen?

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There is little chance of the kingdom cooperating with any ICC request, analysts say

Cambodia's Senate president, Hun Sen (center), pays his respects to the late general secretary of the Vietnam Communist Party Nguyen Phu Trong at the national funeral house during the first day of a two-day-national mourning period in Hanoi on July 25, 2024. (Photo: AFP)

By Fei Ran

Published: March 20, 2025 11:37 AM GMT

Updated: March 20, 2025 11:43 AM GMT

The shock arrest and extradition of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte over the extrajudicial killings of thousands of people in his “war on drugs” has sparked debate over who could be next.

Duterte, who turns 80 this month, was arrested in the Philippines last week and transported to The Hague, where he faced a pretrial hearing on the charges.

Exiled Cambodian activists, including former opposition leader Sam Rainsy, say the country’s former prime minister, Hun Sen — who still wields substantial power — should fear the International Criminal Court (ICC) moving against him next, although analysts say that in reality, this is almost impossible.

Duterte’s ICC arrest has “made Hun Sen unable to sleep,” said one exiled critic, Kim Sok, who fled the country in 2018 after serving an 18-month jail term for accusing Hun Sen’s Cambodian People’s Party of orchestrating the 2016 murder of government critic Kem Ley.

Hun Sen, now president of the Senate and whose son, Hun Manet, is prime minister, has angrily dismissed the comparisons to Duterte as “propaganda” by critics who had been “arrested or ousted from power.”

“When [Muammar] Gaddafi was killed, you compared me to Gaddafi, but when Aung San Suu Kyi won the election in Myanmar, you compared yourself with her and compared me to the junta leader — that made you unable to return to your home country,” Hun Sen told a Cambodian Tycoon Association dinner last week in an apparent reference to Rainsy.

“Now, when Duterte was arrested, you compared me to Duterte,” he said. “However, the Duterte story is the Duterte story, but Hun Sen is not Duterte. Hun Sen is Hun Sen. Hun Sen of Cambodia.”

Hun Sen recently ordered the arrest of a man in northwestern Battambang province for comparing him to Duterte in a Facebook post.

“The man in a Facebook post boasted he would ‘party for three more nights and three more days’ after he insulted me by comparing me to Duterte,” Hun Sen said in his own Facebook post.

“He will now enjoy a party in prison.”

Despite the warnings by critics such as Rainsy and Kim, ICC arrest warrants are executed by the government of the country concerned, which is what happened in the Philippines.

But the Philippines is ruled by Ferdinand Marcos Jr., a political opponent of Duterte, who recently had a falling out with his own vice president — Duterte’s daughter, Sara Duterte.

In the pre-trial hearing at the ICC in The Hague, Duterte’s counsel, Salvador C. Medialdea said the arrest was politically motivated.

“My client was denied legal recourse in the country of his citizenship, and this all in the nature of political score-settling,” he told the hearing on March 14, which was broadcast by the ICC.

Duterte appeared at the hearing by video from a detention center, unable to attend in person because of illness. He said nothing, beyond confirm‎ing his identity.

Since Cambodia is ruled by Hun Sen’s son, Hun Manet, there is little chance of the kingdom cooperating with any ICC request, analysts say.

“Hun Sen has very little, to nothing, to fear,” says Damien Kingsbury, an Australian academic specializing in international affairs and security and a former peace talks adviser to the rebel Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines.

“Of course, he would have to be careful about where he travels, but I'm sure he already is.

“Duterte’s arrest would be portrayed as a neo-imperialist power play and ignored [in Cambodia].”

Cambodia is a signatory to the Rome Treaty that created the ICC. Hun Sen signed up to the ICC in 2002.

If an ICC member country refuses to agree to an ICC arrest warrant, the court can refer the matter to the Permanent Five of the UN Security Council (UNSC) — China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, known as the P5.

But even in that event, Hun Sen appears safe.

“Referral [to the UNSC] is correct in theory, but impossible in practice,” says Kingsbury.

“The P5 of the UNSC would never agree — China because it regards Cambodia as a satellite and Russia because it wants to stymie international law.”

Rainsy, head of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, and other opposition figures have filed ICC cases against Hun Sen before — in 2014, 2017, and 2021 — but those cases went nowhere.

One failed because it included the issue of deportations of ethnic Uyghur refugees to China in 2009.

In the other cases, the ICC said Cambodia’s Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) looking into crimes against humanity during the Khmer Rouge regime had priority.

But the ECCC wound up in 2022, so that is no longer an impediment.

Hun Sen travels frequently to represent Cambodia, but his trips are to countries that are not signatories to the ICC.

In the past two years, his visits have been confined to China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey — none of them signatories to the Rome Treaty.

“The Duterte/ICC thing will not have much impact unless or until Hun Sen decides to travel and gets arrested somewhere,” says Kingsbury. “But he's not that stupid.”

*The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official editorial position of UCA News.