Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - Myanmar's objections to a genocide complaint about its treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority are...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - Myanmar's objections to a genocide complaint about its treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority are anticipated to be decided by the World Court on Friday. If so, it may open the door for a full hearing of the case.
Myanmar, which is currently governed by a military junta that took over in 2021, has contended that Gambia, which filed the lawsuit at the highest U.N. court, officially known as the International Court of Justice, lacked the legal authority to do so (ICJ).
The Gambia asserts that all nations have a responsibility to enforce the 1948 Genocide Convention after its then-attorney general visited a refugee camp in Bangladesh and took up the cause. The 57-nation Organization for Islamic Cooperation is supporting it in a lawsuit that seeks to make Myanmar accountable and stop additional violence.
A separate U.N. fact-finding mission found that the military campaign Myanmar carried out in 2017 that resulted in the displacement of 730,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh contained "genocidal actions."
If courts overturn Myanmar's objections, the case would proceed to a full merits hearing, which will take years. The ICJ case would be concluded if Myanmar won.
The court has no mechanism of implementing its judgements, despite the fact that they are legally binding and that most nations do so.
In a 2020 preliminary ruling, it commanded Myanmar to defend the Rohingya against genocide, establishing their status as a protected minority under international law.
The systematic persecution of Rohingya people, which Amnesty International has referred to as an apartheid regime, is, according to Rohingya advocacy groups and rights campaigners, not being seriously addressed.
In Myanmar, the Rohingya still lack both citizenship and freedom of movement. For the past ten years, tens of thousands have been housed in filthy displacement camps.
Democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who personally defended Myanmar in hearings in The Hague in 2019, has been imprisoned by the regime.
