THE HAGUE: Gambia on Wednesday urged judges at the World Court to reject a challenge by Myanmar to a case brought to halt alleged acts of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority, saying the West African state was “no one’s proxy”.
Myanmar’s junta demanded that the United Nations’ top court drop the case because Gambia was acting as a proxy for others and had no legal standing to file a case.
“Now more than ever justice within Myanmar is impossible and now, as before, only this court can hold Myanmar accountable for its acts of genocide,” Gambia’s Attorney General Dawda Jallow said.
The case before the International Court of Justice was brought in 2019 by Gambia, a predominantly Muslim West African country, backed by the 57-nation Organisation for Islamic Cooperation. Both Myanmar and Gambia have signed the 1948 genocide convention.
Gambia argues that Myanmar has violated that treaty, citing events in 2017, when more than 730,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Myanmar into neighbouring Bangladesh after a military crackdown. A UN fact-finding mission concluded that the military campaign had included “genocidal acts”. The Myanmar military denies the accusation, saying it was conducting a legitimate counterinsurgency campaign.
Jallow said the UN treaty allowed his nation to file a case against Myanmar. If it rejects Myanmar’s objection, the court is expected to rule on the issue of jurisdiction over the case by the end of the year. If the case does proceed, a final ruling is likely to take at several years to reach.
The World Court started to hear preliminary arguments on Monday in a case brought against Myanmar demanding that it halt alleged acts of genocide against its Rohingya Muslim minority.
Presiding Judge Joan Donoghue briefly addressed the debate over who has the right to represent the Southeast Asian country at the UN court after the military took power a year ago. The junta, which detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup last February, has not been recognised by the United Nations General Assembly.
Monday was the first of four days of hearings discussing the junta’s objections to the jurisdiction of the court, formally known as the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The junta nevertheless wants to be Myanmar’s formal representative. The parallel civilian National Unity Government, made up of members of the ousted administration and other junta opponents, accepts the court’s jurisdiction and also wants to be Myanmar’s representative.
Judge Donoghue recalled that the parties in cases before the court “are states, not particular governments”, before going on to call on Myanmar’s new representative, Ko Ko Hlaing who is minister for international cooperation for the junta.
While stressing that Myanmar was arguing the case was inadmissible because the court lacked jurisdiction, he added that the junta wanted to cooperate with the process. “Myanmar raises these preliminary objections with utmost respect to the court,” he said.
At a news conference outside the court, the foreign minister of the National Unity Government had called on judges not to recognise junta representatives. Suu Kyi attended preliminary hearings in the case in 2019 in the Hague, when she also denied genocide had taken place.
In a 2020 decision, the court ordered Myanmar to take measures to protect the Rohingya from harm, given the urgency of the matter. Speaking to reporters outside the court, Ambia Perveen of the European Rohingya Council said that, while the junta does not represent the people of Myanmar, it was important the case moved ahead. “The people who perpetrated genocide should be brought to justice,” she said.
