The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague on Monday opened public hearings in a case that The Gambia filed in November 2019 accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the ethnic Rohingya minority through a military campaign that allegedly began in 2017 and forced more than 700,000 people to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
The Gambia, a West African nation and member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, brought the case under the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention, which both The Gambia and Myanmar ratified, and alleged that Myanmar’s security forces carried out systematic killings, mass rapes, and village burnings against Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.
The ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, scheduled the hearings to allow The Gambia and Myanmar to present oral arguments on whether Myanmar violated its obligations under the Genocide Convention and whether the court holds jurisdiction to hear the dispute.
The Gambia’s application to the ICJ cited reports by United Nations investigators and human rights organizations that described the actions of Myanmar’s military, known as the Tatmadaw, as bearing “genocidal intent” and targeting the Rohingya population as a group.
The case focused on events that escalated in August 2017 when Myanmar’s military launched “clearance operations” after attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on security posts, operations that prompted a large-scale exodus of Rohingya civilians into Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district.
The Gambia asked the ICJ to find that Myanmar breached multiple provisions of the Genocide Convention, including the prohibition on killing members of a protected group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s destruction in whole or in part.
The Gambia also requested that the court order Myanmar to prevent further acts that could fall under the definition of genocide, to preserve evidence related to the alleged crimes, and to submit regular reports to the ICJ on measures taken to comply with any provisional and final orders.
Myanmar previously appeared before the ICJ in December 2019, when then–civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi personally defended the country and urged the court to dismiss the genocide allegations, while acknowledging that security forces might have used disproportionate force in some instances.
The ICJ in January 2020 issued provisional measures ordering Myanmar to prevent acts of genocide against the Rohingya, to ensure that its military and other security forces did not commit such acts, and to preserve any evidence related to the alleged violations.
The Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, lived for generations in Myanmar’s Rakhine State, and successive governments in Myanmar classified most Rohingya as undocumented immigrants from Bangladesh and denied them citizenship under a 1982 nationality law.
United Nations agencies reported that more than 700,000 Rohingya crossed into Bangladesh after the 2017 operations, joining earlier waves of refugees and creating what the UN described as one of the world’s largest refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar.
Bangladesh hosted the displaced Rohingya population in overcrowded camps while it engaged in talks with Myanmar and international partners on possible repatriation, and humanitarian organizations continued to provide food, shelter, and medical assistance under UN coordination.
