Last week, three separate judicial actions were undertaken against Myanmar. The charges are the same in each: genocide and other human rights abuses committed against the Rohingya minority in that country.
As expected, the Myanmar government has not accepted any of these proceedings and says that its own agencies will investigate any crime. However, no investigation has taken place since the crackdown on the Rohingya began three years ago and moreover there is overwhelming evidence that the government itself contributed to the planning and the execution of the genocide. So there seems to be very little hope that these legal processes will bring to justice the perpetrators of crimes and provide relief to the Rohingyas. But that doesn’t mean they are pointless.
Let’s look at them in turn. First, the case that Gambia submitted at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 11 November, claiming that the Myanmar government has violated the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The ICJ can address controversies between nation states, and it may find that Myanmar has violated its international obligations. It could assess that Rohingyas have been persecuted and it could ask the Myanmar government to provide reparations and guarantee repatriations. However, it is not set up to charge individuals.
