A case over Myanmar’s treatment of its Muslim Rohingya minority has been lodged since 2018 with the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Last Friday, the court rejected Myanmar’s objections, paving the way for the case to be heard in full. Presiding judge Joan Donoghue asserted that all states that had signed the 1948 Genocide Convention could and must act to prevent genocide. In a 13-page ruling, the court established the legal justifications for its jurisdiction to try the case.
In 2020, the court issued a provisional decision ordering Myanmar to protect the Rohingya from harm a legal victory that established their right under international law as a protected minority. But while the Hague court’s decisions are binding and countries generally follow them, it has no way of enforcing its rulings. Rohingya groups and rights activists have said that there have been no meaningful efforts by the military to end their persecution.
A UN mission concluded that the 2017 military campaign against the Rohingya, which drove 730,000 of them into neighboring Bangladesh, included genocidal acts. They are still denied citizenship and freedom of movement in Myanmar. The refugees have not been allowed to go back to their homes and those who have stayed are subjected to widespread abuse.
There have been vocal international condemnations for Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya, but little action to restore their rights. Part of the reason is that the military managed in the past to isolate the country’s dozen ethnic communities from the mainstream. It also put pressure on politicians, including those from the majority ethnic and religious group, to side with the military against those minorities.
There has been worldwide condemnation of Myanmar’s de facto government following its announcement on Monday that it had executed four political activists. The killings follow secret proceedings earlier this year, which were criticized at the time by the UN and human rights organizations as lacking due process and falling short of internationally accepted standards of justice.
The executions are only the latest in a long list of atrocities committed, encouraged or condoned by the military, which has governed Myanmar since its independence from Britain in 1948. Those crimes include genocide, wholesale denationalization of minorities, slavery, human trafficking, and recruitment of child soldiers, torture and the use of excessive force against civilians. The most serious of those atrocities is obviously the crime of genocide.
The executions are believed to be the first carried out of 117 death sentences issued by military tribunals since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a human rights monitoring group. The military has ruled Myanmar for most of the country’s postcolonial history following its independence from Britain in 1948. After an experiment with democracy between 1948 and 1962, the army seized power and has remained in control, directly or indirectly, ever since.
Return to direct military rule has reignited or added fuel to Myanmar’s civil wars involving about a dozen ethnic groups, leading to new charges of gross violations of human rights committed by security forces. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has strongly condemned the executions, and called again for the release of all arbitrarily detained prisoners, including Suu Kyi. In a joint statement, the EU, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Britain and the US have also condemned the killings.
