The Rohingya Genocide: Increased International Interest and Developments in the International Court of Justice Case

Years of discrimination and targeted violence have left the Rohingya as the world’s largest stateless population; they now seek refuge in Bangladesh amid ongoing legal battles for accountability through the International Court of Justice.

[1]

“They burned down our houses, raped our mothers and sisters, burned our children. We took shelter in Bangladesh to escape that brutality. Now I’ve been living in Kutupalong camp for five years.”[2]

Nearly one million Rohingya refugees have been forced to flee from violent and discriminatory persecution; seventy-five percent of these refugees are women and children.[3] UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell stated: “Seven years after a deadly wave of violence forced thousands of families from their homes in search of safety, new reports of violence are painful reminders of the continuing threats to children in Myanmar.”[4]

Artillery shelling, drone attacks, and boat capsizes continue to take lives along the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.[5] Despite provisional measures taken by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees,[6] violence and displacement permeate the lives of the Rohingya people—a stateless population principally residing in Myanmar’s Rakhine State that has long experienced persecution and displacement at the hands of the Myanmar military.[7] The 2019 Human Rights Council report on the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar discusses how hostile policies, denial of citizenship and ethnic identity, subjugation, and continued hate speech point to genocidal intent behind the campaign against the Rohingya.[8]

Approximately 500,000 Rohingya refugee children are now growing up in the Kutupalong refugee camp—the world’s largest refugee camp—following continued efforts by the Myanmar military to seize control over the region.[9] The details surrounding the “clearance operations” are gruesome and these crimes are now the subject of a genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), in addition to an International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of crimes against the Rohingya.[10] Although Myanmar has not ratified the ICC’s Statute, ICC judges authorized investigation into the continued offensives by the Myanmar military because the alleged crimes against the Rohingya took place partly in Bangladesh, an ICC member state.[11]

International legal efforts to hold the party accountable for the “clearance operations” were initiated by The Gambia’s 2019 application to the ICJ. In 2022, the ICJ reviewed the application and determined that it had jurisdiction over the allegations of genocide.[12] This is the first time the Court will hear a genocide claim presented by one country in no direct dispute with the other, instead bringing a claim on behalf of another group.[13] Still, these provisional measures have fallen short of any semblance of justice or protection for the crimes against the Rohingya, and the case has yet to be resolved.

Genocide was recognized by the United States for only the eighth time in 2022.[14] U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken went further, stating that the United States supported the UN Fact-Finding Mission for Myanmar and now its successor: the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar.[15] This level of attention to the plight of the Rohingya must be maintained by the international community before the victims are forgotten and those violating international human rights escape accountability. One such perpetrator is Min Aung Hlaing, the Myanmar general who oversaw the atrocities and has since appointed himself Prime Minister and President of Myanmar via coup d’état.[16] As the civil conflict in Myanmar continues, humanitarian needs grow, displacement surges, and human rights violations worsen—prompting extensive fact-finding in the pursuit of prosecuting the powers in Myanmar.[17]

The Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) has amassed 25,000 pages of official documents, many pertaining to the expulsion of the Rohingya.[18] These investigators have been working to compile evidence in an effort to secure convictions in the ICC. Secretary Blinken also reported that the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar has collected “more than 1.5 million items of evidence and information, including witness testimonies, documents, messages, photos, videos, geospatial imagery, [and] social media pages.”[19] As the case files continue to grow and more members of the international community take a legal interest, there is hope for justice for the Rohingya. The ICC and ICJ developments are worth monitoring in this landmark genocide: justice delayed is justice denied.

In July 2024, the ICJ unanimously ruled that intervention declarations brought by seven countries are admissible under Article 63 of the ICJ Statute.[20] The countries responsible for these declarations include the Republic of Maldives and the several States behind a jointly-submitted declaration: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.[21] In accordance with Article 86, these States can submit their written observations to the interventions on the subject matter.[22] In October 2023, the Court ordered a reply by The Gambia and a rejoinder by Myanmar, with May 16, 2024 and December 16, 2024 as the respective pleading deadlines.[23] While the timeline is moving slowly, the pursuit of justice and accountability should not be abandoned. The Rohingya must not be forgotten.

The ICC’s investigation has also led to positive steps toward accountability. On November 27, 2024, ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC filed an application for a warrant to arrest Min Aung Hlaing for the alleged crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya.[24] This application, currently pending before Pre-Trial Chamber I of the ICC, represents the first to be filed against a high-level Myanmar government official; the hope is that, as Prosecutor Khan declared, “[m]ore will follow.”[25]

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[1] Dar Yasin, Photograph of a Rohingya man carrying his mother from Myanmar into Bangladesh, in Param-Preet Signh & Amy Braunschweiger, Interview: Landmark World Court Order Protects Rohingya from Genocide, Hum. Rts. Watch (Jan. 27, 2020, 2:41 PM), https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/01/27/interview-landmark-world-court-order-protects-rohingya-genocide.

[2] Myanmar: No Justice, No Freedom for Rohingya 5 Years On, Hum. Rts. Watch (Aug. 24, 2022, 8:00 AM), https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/08/24/myanmar-no-justice-no-freedom-rohingya-5-years (quoting Abdul Halim, a Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh).

[3] Rohingya Refugee Crisis, UN Refugee Agency, https://www.unrefugees.org/emergencies/rohingya-refugee-crisis/ (last visited Apr. 4, 2025).

[4] Joe English & Miguel Mateos Muñoz, Seven Years After Forced Mass Displacement of Rohingya from Myanmar, Deadly Attacks on Children Continue in Rakhine State, UNICEF (Aug. 24, 2024), https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/seven-years-after-forced-mass-displacement-rohingya-myanmar-deadly-attacks-children.

[5] Id.

[6] Rohingya Refugee Crisis Explained, UNHCR (Aug. 22, 2024), https://www.unrefugees.org/news/rohingya-refugee-crisis-explained/ (highlighting efforts taken by the UNHCR and its partners to bring relief to Rohingya refugees, including “the provision of emergency shelter, clean drinking water, food supplies and ensuring access to health and sanitation facilities”).

[7] Id.

[8] Hum. Rts. Council, Rep. of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, U.N. Doc. A/HRC/42/50 (2019), https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g19/236/74/pdf/g1923674.pdf?OpenElement.

[9] English & Mateos Muñoz, supra note 4.

[10] Myanmar: New Attacks Against Rohingya a Disturbing Echo of 2017 Mass Violence, Amnesty Int’l (Aug. 21, 2024), https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/08/myanmar-new-attacks-against-rohingya-a-disturbing-echo-of-2017-mass-violence/.

[11] ICC – Situation in Bangladesh/Myanmar, Indep. Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, U.N., https://iimm.un.org/en/icc-situation-bangladeshmyanmar (last visited Apr. 4, 2025). The ICC’s investigation has since led to a formal request by ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC for the ICC to issue a warrant for arrest for Senior General and Acting President Min Aung Hlaing, Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services. Bangladesh/Myanmar, Int’l Crim. Ct., https://www.icc-cpi.int/bangladesh-myanmar (last visited Apr. 4, 2025). Filed on November 17, 2024, the warrant application remains pending before the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I. Id.

[12] Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genoicde (The Gambia v. Myanmar), Judgment, 2022 I.C.J. No. 178 (July 2022), https://www.icj-cij.org/public/files/case-related/178/178-20220722-JUD-01-00-EN.pdf.

[13] Id.

[14] Press Release, Antony J. Blinken, Sec’y of State, U.S. Dep’t of State, Secretary Antony J. Blinken on the Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity in Burma (Mar. 21, 2022), https://2021-2025.state.gov/secretary-antony-j-blinken-at-the-united-states-holocaust-memorial-museum/.

[15] Id.

[16] Associated Press, Myanmar’s Military Leader Declares Himself Prime Minister and Promises Elections, NPR (Aug. 2, 2021, 12:22 PM), https://www.npr.org/2021/08/02/1023782084/myanmar-military-leader-prime-minister-elections?.

[17] Myanmar Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2024 Addendum [EN/MY], U.N. Off. for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affs. (June 9, 2024), https://www.unocha.org/publications/report/myanmar/myanmar-humanitarian-needs-and-response-plan-2024-addendum.

[18] Poppy McPherson & Wa Lone, New Evidence Shows How Myanmar's Military Planned its Brutal Purge of the Rohingya, Reuters (Aug. 4, 2022, 11:00 AM), https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/myanmar-rohingya-warcrimes-investigation/.

[19] Blinken, supra note 13.

[20] Press Release, Int’l Ct. of Just., The Court Decides That the Declarations of Intervention Filed by Seven States Are Admissible (July 3, 2024), https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204144.

[21] Id.

[22] Id.

[23] Id.

[24] Bangladesh/Myanmar, supra note 10.

[25] Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC: Application for an arrest warrant in the situation in Bangladesh/Myanmar, Int’l Crim. Ct. (Nov. 27, 2024), https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-application-arrest-warrant-situation-bangladesh.