MANILA, Philippines - Plagiarized portions of a Philippine Supreme Court ruling that dismissed reparation demands of Filipino "comfort women" has caught the attention of an international law group.

In a July 23 letter to the Supreme Court, Mark Ellis, executive director of the International Bar Association, questioned the court's unauthorized use of his article "Breaking the Silence on Rape as an International Crime"  published in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law in 2006.

Portions of the article were used without attribution in the case of Vinuya v. Romulo (G.R. No 162230), which junked the petition of 70 Filipino comfort women to compel the Philippine government to get a public apology from Tokyo and to provide reparation to victims of sexual abuse during World War II. The decision was penned by Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo.

In his letter addressed to the SC justices, Ellis said the Philippine chapter of the Southeast Asia Media Legal Defense Initiative (SEAMLDI) first called his attention to the issue of possible plagiarism of his law review article.

"Much as I regret to raise this matter before your esteemed Court, I am compelled as a question of the integrity of my work as an academic and as an advocate of human rights and humanitarian law to take exception to the possible unauthorized use of my law review article on rape as an international crime in your esteemed Court's Judgment in the case of Vinuya et al., v. Executive Secretary et al," he said.

He expressed concern that his article was misused to justify why victims of war crimes should not be given legal remedy.

"I am also concerned that your esteemed Court may have misread the arguments I made in the article and employed them for cross purposes. This would be ironic since the article was written precisely to argue for the appropriate legal remedy for victims of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity," he told the court.

Ellis urged the court to take the time to study his arguments, saying that a copy of his article has been made available to the Court.

Ellis is the executive director of the International Bar Association, which is composed of 198 national bar associations with 40,000 members worldwide.

A Newsbreak article earlier said the Supreme Court ruling on World War II comfort women copied from three materials written by legal experts abroad without proper attribution to the authors.

Aside from the Ellis article, the decision also lifted quotes and footnotes from "A Fiduciary Theory of Jus Cogens" by Ivan Criddle and Evan Fox-Descent, published last year in the Yale Journal of International Law; and "Enforcing Erga Omnes Obligations in International Law" by Christian Tams, published in 2005.

Criddle, an assistant professor at the Syracuse University College of Law, also questioned the plagiarism of his work and its misuse to justify the dismissal of the comfort women's complaint.

“The most troubling aspect of the court’s jus cogens discussion is that it implies that the prohibitions against crimes against humanity, sexual slavery and torture are not jus cogens norms. Our article emphatically asserts the opposite,” Criddle wrote in a US-based legal blog.

Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo earlier denied there were plagiarized passages in the Supreme Court's April 28 ruling, which he penned.

He said that the quotes from the foreign articles were “only appendages, or at the very least, provide small contribution to the resolution of the issues…” (Click here for related story.)

The Court has formed an ethics committee to investigate the matter. Chaired by Chief Justice Renato Corona, the working chair is Justice Teresita de Castro, and members are Justices Roberto Abad, Jose Perez, and Jose Mendoza.

Sen. Francis Pangilinan, meanwhile, urged Castillo to resign from the Supreme Court after being accused of plagiarism.

“SC Justice Del Castillo should resign from the Supreme Court. If he fails to do so, he should be impeached. If a law student can be expelled from school because of plagiarism, more so a Supreme Court Justice. This issue is not as Justice Del Castillo wants to put it: a diversion of attention from far more significant concerns. That comment is totally unacceptable. It is a poor attempt at sweeping dirt under the rug," he said.

He added: "His resignation now will spare him, his family, and the court from further embarrassment and harm.”