The United Nations’ highest court has rejected Myanmar’s attempts to halt a case accusing it of genocide against the country’s Rohingya minority, paving the way for evidence of atrocities to be heard. The international court of justice rejected all preliminary objections raised by Myanmar, which is now ruled by a military junta, at a hearing on Friday. The case, which was filed by the Gambia, centers on brutal military crackdowns in 2016 and 2017 that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee over the border to neighboring Bangladesh.
Myanmar had argued that the court did not have jurisdiction, claiming the Gambia could not bring the case because it was not directly affected by the events, and because a legal dispute did not exist between the two countries before the case was filed. It also claimed that the Gambia was acting as a “proxy” for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and lacked standing because the ICJ only rules on disputes between states.
Read more here.
