ICJ orders Myanmar to protect 'vulnerable' Rohingyas; seeks report within 4 months

The International Court of Justice on Thursday ordered Myanmar to take all measures to prevent the genocide of Rohingya Muslims in the Rakhine state. Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf on behalf of the ICJ said that the court "is of the opinion that the Rohingya in Myanmar remain extremely vulnerable.” The court added that its order for so-called provisional measures intended to protect the Rohingya is binding "and creates international legal obligations" on Myanmar. It also ordered Myanmar to submit a report of the steps taken by the country in accordance with the order.

The case that the ICJ was hearing was about the Gambia accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingyas. The case was defended by the de-facto ruler of the country Aung San Suu Kyi. The Gambia in the case accused Myanmar army of carrying out military operations in the Rakhine state in 2016 and 2017, after which almost 800,000 Rohingyas fled the country.

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What triggered the military operations on Rohingyas?

In August 2017, a militant group known as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) claimed responsibility of attacking police and army posts. This prompted action from the Myanmar army, which declared ARSA as a terrorist organisation and allegedly started a brutal campaign in Rakhine state, burning their houses, forcing almost seven hundred thousand Rohingya to leave the country.

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Who are Rohingyas?

Rohingyas are an ethnic minority in Myanmar residing in the Rakhine state of the country. While most of the Rohingyas are Muslims, very few are also Hindus. The Buddhist majority nation of Myanmar claims that Rohingyas are residents of Bangladesh. The Rohingyas trace their origin to the fifteenth century the Arakan Kingdom. However, they say that many others settled in the now Rakhine state in the nineteenth and twentieth-century under the colonial regime. 

The Buddhist majority govt in Myanmar denied citizenship to the Rohingyas in 1962 even as they recognised 135 official ethnic groups in Myanmar. Moreover, they do not recognise the term Rohingya and call them "illegal migrants" from Bangladesh. however, experts say that Rohingyas gave themselves the term for a distinct political identity during the 1950s, loosely meaning "from Arakan."

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UN on Rohingyas

As the Rohingyas crisis unfolded in 2017, the UN had called it "a textbook example of ethnic cleansing." UN human rights council High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein had denounced the “brutal security operation” against the Rohingya in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. Back in 2019, the United Nations General Assembly had also passed a resolution strongly condemning rights abuses against Rohingya Muslims. In December last year, state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, appeared in the UN's top court and denied the charges that the military had attempted to exterminate Rohingyas. However, she admitted that the army may have used excessive force against Rohingya Muslims.

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