Myanmar junta’s 'crimes' should be referred to Int'l Criminal Court: Rights group

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - A human rights group on Monday urged the member states of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to address "double standards" in the administration of international justice and refer the situation in Myanmar to the ICC prosecutor.

Representatives from all 124 states who have ratified or acceded to the Rome Statute — the ICC’s founding treaty — are set to gather for the annual meeting of the court’s governing body, the Assembly of States Parties, at UN Headquarters in New York starting Monday through Dec. 14.

“For too long, the Myanmar military and its supporters have enjoyed complete impunity for their international atrocity crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and even genocide,” said Matthew Smith, Chief Executive Officer at Fortify Rights, an independent, nonprofit organization registered in the US and Switzerland.

“Using Article 14 of the Rome Statute, ICC member states can request the Chief Prosecutor to initiate an investigation into the most serious crimes occurring in Myanmar. This should be done without delay,” he said in a statement.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Rome Statute.

In 2018, the ICC granted the chief prosecutor jurisdiction to investigate and possibly prosecute the crime against humanity of forced deportation of Rohingya to Bangladesh, as well as persecution and other inhumane acts.

It did so based on the facts that Bangladesh is a state party to the ICC, while Myanmar is not, and that forced deportation is a crime necessarily involving two countries.

In November 2019, the ICC prosecutor initiated an investigation into crimes against Rohingya involving the territory of Bangladesh. Until recently, there has been no basis for ICC jurisdiction over actions taking place in Myanmar. This, however, is no longer the case.

While Myanmar is not an ICC member state, the National Unity Government (NUG) — the body representing Myanmar’s democratically-elected leaders — lodged a 12(3) declaration with the court’s registrar on July 17, 2021, accepting the jurisdiction of the court for international crimes committed on Myanmar territory since July 1, 2002, and into the future.

The ICC member states should urgently pursue a similar trajectory that they did in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war for "a full investigation into mass atrocity crimes happening in Myanmar,” the statement added.

On Feb. 24 last year, 43 ICC member states referred the situation in Ukraine to the ICC prosecutor, who in turn, in March 2022, announced that he had opened "an investigation into crimes within the Court’s jurisdiction committed in Ukraine."

On March 17, 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, one of Putin’s commissioners.

In 2017, Myanmar’s military launched a brutal crackdown, which rights groups have since called a genocide. Nearly 1.2 million Rohingya were forced into neighboring Bangladesh, where they have been living for years in overcrowded refugee camps.