Myanmar stands accused of committing genocide against members of the Rohingya ethnic minority in a case opening at a United Nations court this week.
The long-awaited International Court of Justice (ICJ) hearings in The Hague concern charges the southeast Asian nation committed genocide against the predominantly Muslim minority in Rakhine State in the west of country, and began on Monday.
The case was first filed by the Gambia in 2019, which has argued that Myanmar’s military engaged in a “clearance operation” in 2017 that violated the 1948 Genocide Convention.
It has accused security forces of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes, which resulted in more than 700,000 Rohingya refugees fleeing into neighbouring Bangladesh.
Myanmar, which launched the campaign in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group, has denied the allegations.
The Gambia’s justice minister Dawda Jallow said his country had brought the case out of “a sense of responsibility” following its own experience with a military government.
“We must use our moral voice in condemnation of oppression, of crimes against individuals, and of groups, wherever and whenever they occur,” he said.
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The trial is the first genocide case the ICJ has taken up in full in more than a decade, and its outcome could have repercussions for how future allegations are assessed, including South Africa’s case accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
Several members of the Rohingya made the trip to the Netherlands to attend the hearings, which are expected to last three weeks.
Today, an estimated 1.2 million members of the persecuted minority are living overcrowded camps in Bangladesh.
Sudden and severe foreign aid cuts imposed last year by US President Donald Trump closed thousands of the camps’ schools and have caused children to starve to death.
“We don’t have anything that human beings should have,” Yousuf Ali, who travelled from a refugee camp in Bangladesh to the Netherlands for the proceedings, told The Associated Press.
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Myanmar was initially represented at the court by Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who denied her country’s armed forces committed genocide, telling the ICJ in 2019 that the mass exodus of Rohingya people from the country she led was the unfortunate result of a battle with insurgents.
The pro-democracy icon is now in prison after being convicted of what her supporters call trumped-up charges after a military takeover of power.
Myanmar contested the court’s jurisdiction, saying Gambia was not directly involved in the conflict and therefore could not initiate a case. But in 2022, judges rejected the argument, allowing the case to move forward.
A finding of genocide may also have an impact on the ongoing investigation at another court based in The Hague, the International Criminal Court.
In 2024, the court’s chief prosecutor asked judges to issue an arrest warrant for the head of Myanmar’s military regime, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, for crimes against the Rohingya.
The request for the warrant is still pending.
