Aung San Suu Kyi to Defend Myanmar in World Court on Rohingya Issue

Aung San Suu Kyi, the former democracy icon and present State counselor of Myanmar is going to defends Myanmar in The Hague this week against the charges of genocide in Myanmar targeting the minority Rohingya Muslims. 

The African state of The Gambia, which is representing on behalf of the 57-nations Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, is going to ask the International Court of Justice to take immediate measures to halt genocidal actions in Myanmar.

In a highly unusual move, the office of Nobel Peace laureate and Myanmar civilian leader Suu Kyi has confirmed that she herself will lead a legal team to the United Nations’ highest court, based in the Netherlands. She also said that she is heading to The Hague in order to “defend the national interests of Myanmar”.

Thus Suu Kyi would become one of the first national leaders to personally address the tribunal since it’s beginning in the year 1946 after World War II to rule out disputes between the countries.

Cecily Rose, an assistant professor in international law at Leiden University, says Suu Kyi’s plan to appear before the judges for the 3-day hearing starting Tuesday is unprecedented and also very unwise. Rose says, “States never ever send politicians to lead legal teams at the ICJ. Although Suu Kyi is Oxford-educated with an impressive background, she has no legal qualifications and would be completely at sea before the court.”

The case is also going to be the first international legal attempt to bring Myanmar to court over the crisis. As a Muslim majority, Gambia has alledged that Myanmar has breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. 

In the court, Myanmar is expected to argue, that the international court has no jurisdiction on its military operations that are targeting Rohingya militants, as its own investigations into alleged abuse are inadequate.

In the past few years, Suu Kyi’s international reputation has been tarnished because of her response to the Rohingya crisis within her country, which according to critics, is acting as an apologist for the same military that has kept her under house arrest for so many years.

Apart from this, Myanmar also faces other legal challenges in international courts such as an investigation by the International Criminal Court, which is another Hague-based tribunal, started in the year 2002 to probe war crimes and also a lawsuit in Argentina. 

After the Myanmar military launched a violent crackdown on the Rohingya Muslims in 2017, around 740,000 Rohingyas were forced to flee into various camps in Bangladesh, and many died in the process.