The ICJ's landmark ruling on Myanmar's alleged Rohingya genocide could set a historic precedent for South Africa's genocide case against Israel in Gaza.
Follow us on GoogleA ruling in the landmark case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its Rohingya minority is expected to be delivered by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) later this week.
Though it has previously ruled atrocities as genocide, the ICJ has never before formally found a country guilty of committing such an act.
“The ICJ ruling will be historic for Rohingya survivors and their families around the world,” The Guardian cited Yanghee Lee, a former UN rights investigator to Myanmar, as saying.
“The international community failed to prevent Myanmar military atrocities against the Rohingya nine years ago. It must seize this opportunity to finally secure justice for the Rohingya and begin to reckon with these failings.”
The predominantly Muslim West African country of Gambia filed the case at the ICJ - also known as the World Court - in 2019, accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim minority in the remote western Rakhine state.
Myanmar's armed forces launched an offensive in 2017 that forced at least 730,000 Rohingya from their homes and into neighboring Bangladesh, where they recounted killings, mass rape, and arson.
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, in an October post on X/Twitter, warned against the ICJ being allowed to “lower the legal threshold for proving genocide so that a weakened and false standard can later be weaponized against American and allied soldiers whenever they raise a finger against terrorists that hide behind civilians.”
The outcome is expected to have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely affecting South Africa’s genocide case at the ICJ against Israel over the war in Gaza.
Gambia's genocide charge provided South Africa with precedent
Notably, it was Gambia bringing the genocide charge against Myanmar that set a precedent for South Africa to bring its case against Israel to the ICJ.
South Africa initially brought the accusation against Israel before the court over alleged violations of the Genocide Convention in relation to the war in Gaza in December 2023. Israel subsequently rejected the allegation of genocide, calling it “baseless.”
Before Gambia brought the Myanmar case to the ICJ, the court had rarely handled issues of genocide.
In 2007, the ICJ ruled that Serbia had failed to prevent the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina but failed to hold any one country directly responsible for the crime.
In 2022, Ukraine brought forth a case to the ICJ days after Russia’s invasion, arguing against accusations that it was committing genocide in Luhansk and Donetsk.
While the ICJ has not handed down genocide convictions, other international legal institutions have, such as The Hague, which held war crime tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has jurisdiction in genocide cases.
For the ICJ, however, cases can only be brought where both countries have consented to the court’s jurisdiction - such as in the case of the Genocide Convention.
Russia, Myanmar, and Israel are all parties to the Genocide Convention.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Follow us on GoogleSource: The Jerusalem Post · JERUSALEM POST STAFF
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