Gambia vs Myanmar in the genocide case against the Rohingya, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, is a significant turning point of the genocide law against nations.
The nitti-gritty of the case has drawn keen attention from international observasers and human rights actor’s; overlooking the merits of the case.
Gambia’s legal team submitted plethora of evidence; taken into account of the UN Fact Finding Mission (FFM) and reports from human rights agencies.
The oral hearings references grave violations including, sexual violence, mass displacement, coordinated attacks, rape persecution among others.
The legal defence team of Myanmar allaying fear of counterterrorism is a non starter within the fray of genocide Convocation.
The ICJ has never ruled that a state is/was responsible for committing genocide. Under ICJʼs remit, the act of committing genocide is two fold – an intent to destroy in whole or in part, a region, community, population and country.
The tatmadaw is accused of committing horrendous carnage against the minority Rohingya community across over 40 villages, in nothern Rakhine state.
Myanmars genocidal intent bring into recollection of the twin genocide cases between Croatia vs Serbia in 2015, and Bosnia vs Serbia in 2007.
“The destruction of the group ‘in part’ within the meaning of Article || of the Convention must be assessed by reference to a number of criteria. In this regard, it held in 2007 that ‘the intent must be to destroy at least a substantial part of the particular group’ and this is a ‘crucial’ criterion.
The Court further noted that ‘it is widely accepted that genocide may be found to have been committed where the intent is to destroy the group within the geographically limited area’.
The Court need to take into account the substantial element couple with the geographic factors of the targeted group. The inference of the Courtʼs ruling will thus shape future genocide cases.
