THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — The International Court of Justice finished a week of hearings on Monday into whether it has jurisdiction to decide if Myanmar violated a 1948 treaty against genocide.
The West African state of Gambia filed a complaint before The Hague-based United Nations court in 2019, alleging Myanmar’s treatment of the Muslim minority group violated the post-World War II Genocide Convention, but Myanmar argues Gambia can’t bring the case because its nationals haven’t been affected.
Further complicating the dispute, since proceedings began the military in Myanmar staged a coup and arrested its civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. She represented her country during preliminary hearings in 2019, but she’s currently jailed on charges of treason. The South Asian country is now being represented by a former propaganda minister, Ko Ko Hlaing.
In her opening remarks last week, ICJ President Joan Donoghue addressed the matter: “The parties to the case are states, not particular governments." Activist groups have been calling for the ICJ to refuse to hear the case in an effort to isolate the military junta.
Myanmar argued Gambia shouldn’t be able to file the complaint because Gambians haven't been impacted by its actions.
"Humanitarian considerations themselves cannot generate legal interest,” Myanmar's lawyer Stefan Talmon said during his opening statements last Monday.
But Gambia disagrees, arguing anyone can initiate proceedings under the U.N. convention.
"We made it our business when we, as civilized nations, committed ourselves to the Genocide Convention,” Gambian Minister of Justice Dawda Jallow said in his opening statement.
According to Myanmar, Gambia is serving as a proxy for the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, an intergovernmental organization representing countries with large Muslim populations. While it is true the OIC is supporting Gambia in its efforts, so are a number of other countries, including Canada and The Netherlands.
Gambia's lawyer Paul Reichler called these allegations “an affront to state sovereignty and an insult to the Gambia.” He told the court that the most poignant moment in his 37-year career before the ICJ was seeing a video of Rohingya people chanting “Gambia Gambia” in a refugee camp when the case opened last year.
Last year, the court granted preliminary measures and ordered the Buddhist-majority government in Myanmar to stop acts of violence against Rohingya and protect evidence of any crimes as well as regularly reporting the status of the situation to the court. Myanmar’s crackdown against the Muslim minority group, starting in 2017, has left more than 25,000 dead and 700,000 people displaced into neighboring Bangladesh.
The ICJ has seen a number of cases related Genocide Convention in recent years. The court held in 2007 that the Srebrenica massacre - in which more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys were killed during the Bosnia War - was a genocide.
On Sunday, Ukraine filed a complaint with the court claiming that the Russian invasion violates the treaty and asking the court to intervene.
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