ICC, Myanmar and Kashmir.

Byline: Dr Usman Hameed

In what can be termed a major development, on November 19, 2019, the ICC's pre-trial chamber authorised an investigation into the acts of violence against Rohingya Muslim minority of Myanmar. The authorisation follows a prosecutorial request to conduct an inquiry into possible commission of 'atrocity crimes' in Myanmar as listed in the Rome Statute of International Criminal Court, in particular, crimes against humanity.

Myanmar itself is not a party to the Rome Statute. However, the investigation has been authorised on the basis that parts of the crimes have taken place in Bangladesh, which accepts ICC's jurisdiction. The crimes falling under ICC's jurisdiction include crimes against humanity, genocide, war crimes and aggression. If a part of these crimes, such as murder, torture or rape takes place on the territory of a state party or a state having accepted jurisdiction, the ICC's may step in and exercise its jurisdiction. In this case, the Gambia invoked the ICC's jurisdiction. The Gambia maintained that part of the crime, i.e. 'deportation' took place in Bangladesh.

Since 2016, there have been countless reports of human rights violations of Myanmar's Rohingya Muslim minority at the hands of its overwhelming Buddhist majority. It has been claimed that the reign of terror was unleashed at the behest of Buddhist monks who set out to cleanse Myanmar of Rohingyas. Allegedly, the fiery speeches of these monks provoked Buddhist citizens to commit the acts of murder, rape, persecution and deportation to annihilate Rohingyan Muslims. It is estimated that to date about 25,000 Rohingyans have been killed, and 600,000 to 1 million have been forced to take refuge in neighbouring Bangladesh. The latter enabled the ICC to authorise an investigation as Bangaladesh had accepted ICC's jurisdiction.

According to the definition of crimes against humanity under the ICC statute, any act of willful murder, rape, deportation, and persecution on national racial, religious and ethnic grounds may qualify as crime against humanity if the same is committed in the backdrop of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack. Now what is to be established through investigation is whether crimes against humanity have taken place on the territory of Myanmar against an ethnic minority. Also, was the government of Myanmar' unable' or 'unwilling' to put a stop to the atrocities? If the above...