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Myanmar
This Week in AsiaPolitics

Analysis | What if Myanmar refuses to comply with ICJ ruling on Rohingya Muslims?

  • The International Court of Justice has ordered Myanmar to protect its Rohingya Muslims and take part in a genocide inquiry
  • But there are fears of revenge attacks and of Myanmar covering up atrocities as the court did not order that UN investigators be allowed into Rakhine state

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Rohingya refugees are seen in a camp in Bangladesh. The International Court of Justice on Thursday ordered Myanmar to take urgent measures to protect its Rohingya Muslim population from persecution and atrocities. Photo: Reuters
Joe Cochrane
The ruling by the International Court of Justice in The Hague that Myanmar cooperates in a genocide inquiry relating to its Rohingya Muslim group raises huge questions, and a potentially nightmarish scenario for the United Nations and international community if Myanmar does not comply.
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The court, in a stern and unanimous ruling on Thursday, ordered Myanmar’s government to take special measures to protect the Rohingya, a stateless group living in the western state of Rakhine who have suffered persecution by the country’s Buddhist majority for decades and were subjected to brutal assaults by the military in 2017 that killed thousands and included mass murder, rape, torture and the razing of villages.

Stating that the Rohingya remain in grave peril, the judges ordered measures including protecting them from genocidal acts and other acts of violence, preserving evidence of genocide, and requiring the Myanmar government to report back to the court within four months on the steps it has taken to do so.

Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague in December. Photo: AFP
Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi speaks at the UN's International Court of Justice in The Hague in December. Photo: AFP
The ICJ was acting on an application by Muslim-majority Gambia last November which accused Myanmar’s military of committing genocide to wipe out the Rohingya population. More than 780,000 Rohingya fled across the border into neighbouring Bangladesh to escape the onslaught.
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“Thursday’s order was momentous as it effectively places Myanmar’s obligations to protect the Rohingya pursuant to the Genocide Convention under the judicial supervision of the court,” said Kingsley Abbott, senior legal adviser and coordinator of the Global Accountability Initiative of the International Commission of Jurists.

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