World Court To Rule On Myanmar’s Objections To Rohingya Genocide Case

New Delhi: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule on Friday on Myanmar’s preliminary objection to a case filed by African nation Gambia against Naypyidaw for the alleged genocide of Rohingya Muslims, reported news agency AFP. 

In 2019, the west African nation had accused military-ruled Myanmar in the world court of breaching the UN Genocide Convention over a bloody 2017 crackdown. Hundreds and thousands of people from the Muslim Rohingya community fled the Buddhist-majority southeast Asian country after the operation began with harrowing reports of murder, rape and arson, the AFP report stated. 

In a statement by the Hague-based world court, it will “deliver its judgement on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar” at 13:00 GMT on Friday, the report stated further. 

Myanmar says that the case should be dismissed by the court on legal grounds while it is still in its preliminary stage, and before it starts dealing with the genocide allegations in full. As per the report, Naypyidaw argues that the case has been brought up by mainly Muslim-Gambia as a proxy of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) therefore ICJ has no jurisdiction on the same. 

Countries are only allowed to file cases at the ICJ, which has ruled on disputes between UN members since just after World War II, as individual states.

The Gambia says it is supported by the 57-member OIC, which groups Muslim nations around the world. 

Myanmar further argues that the case is inadmissible in the court as Gambia is not a direct party to the alleged genocide, while Myanmar had also chose to opt out itself of a relevant part of the genocide convention. It also said that the case should be dismissed as there was no formal dispute at the time when the matter was filed by Gambia as per one of the court’s rules.