“We don’t recognise the warrant that they will send to us. That’s a no,” Marcos said at a forum with the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines.

Thousands of people have been killed in the anti-narcotics campaign started by former president Duterte in 2016 and continued under Marcos.

Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the International Criminal Court in 2019 after the Hague-based tribunal started probing allegations of human rights abuses committed during his drug war.

Marcos has repeatedly ruled out rejoining the court.

The ICC launched a formal enquiry into Duterte’s crackdown in September 2021, only to suspend it two months later after Manila said it was re-examining several hundred cases of drug operations that led to deaths at the hands of police, hitmen, and vigilantes.

The then-ICC-chief prosecutor later asked to reopen the enquiry in June 2022, and pre-trial judges at the court gave the green light in late January 2023 – a decision that Manila appealed shortly afterward and lost.

More than 6,000 people were killed in anti-drug operations under Duterte, according to official data released by the Philippines. ICC prosecutors estimate the death toll at between 12,000 and 30,000.