The United Nation's (UN) top court will announce its legally binding decision on the Gambia's request for emergency measures in the Rohingya genocide case on January 23.
After last month's historic three-day hearing at The Hague, which was the first major legal attempt to hold Mayanmar accountable over accusations of genocide, this decision will decide the trajectory of the case. The Gambia has requested "provisional measures" to halt "all acts that amount to or contribute to the crime of genocide" against the Rohingya.
In a case that will take years to reach its final conclusion, this by many is touted as the first but essential step to give relief to a community that has gone through great suffering in the last couple of years.
The 2017 brutal military crackdown in the northern Rakhine State of Myanmar which saw around 740,000 to flee to neighboring countries, resulted in the deaths of at least 10,000 Rohingyas according to a fact-finding report by the UN. Myanmar vehemently denies allegations and rejects these facts put forth by the UN. Last month, Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was till very recently revered in the West as a champion of democracy, went to the trials to defend her country.
The Nobel Peace laureate suggested that the Gambia painted “an incomplete and misleading factual picture” and urged the case to be dropped by pointing that the Court had no jurisdiction over this matter. While she accepted the possibility of the use of excessive and disproportionate forces by the armed forces, she says the act did not constitute genocide.
According to the Gambian officials, who Suu Kyi says are doing the bidding of Islamic nations of the OIC, the ICJ cannot afford to wait as there remains a "serious and imminent risk of genocide recurring". And as elections approach in Myanmar, one should not expect the Myanmar governments to back down as there is very little sympathy for the plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar with the military enjoying popular support.
Only once in history has the ICJ has ruled that genocide was committed–the 1995 Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia. But for Myanmar, legal challenges over the Rohingya keep mounting as the International Criminal Court agreed to set up a separate war crimes tribunal and investigate the role of Myanmar's leadership, including Suu Kyii.
Image Source: The Interpreter
ICJ to Rule on Provisional Measures in Rohingya Genocide Case Next Week
January 17, 2020
