THE HAGUE: The UN’s highest court will decide on Friday whether to throw out a case lodged by The Gambia against military-ruled Myanmar for the alleged genocide of Rohingya Muslims.
The west African nation accused Myanmar at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2019 of breaching the UN genocide convention over a bloody 2017 crackdown.
Hundreds of thousands of minority Rohingya fled the Buddhist-majority southeast Asian country during the operation, bringing with them harrowing reports of murder, rape and arson.
The Hague-based ICJ said in a statement that it will at 1300 GMT “deliver its judgment on the preliminary objections raised by Myanmar.”
Myanmar says the court should dismiss the case on legal grounds while it is still in its preliminary stages, and before it starts dealing with the genocide allegations in full.
It says the ICJ has no jurisdiction because mainly-Muslim Gambia is bringing the case as a proxy of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
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 also argues that the case is inadmissible as Gambia is not a direct party to alleged genocide, while Myanmar itself has also opted out of a relevant part of the genocide convention.
Finally it also says the case should be thrown out as there was no formal dispute at the time Gambia filed it, which is one of the court’s rules.
If the ICJ rules against Myanmar, the case can move ahead to full arguments on the merits of the allegations of mistreatment of Rohingya Muslims.
A final judgment in such a case could take years.
Around 850,000 Rohingya are languishing in camps in neighboring Bangladesh while another 600,000 Rohingya remain in Myanmar’s southwestern Rakhine state.
Myanmar was originally represented at the ICJ by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, but she was ousted as civilian leader in a coup last year and is now in detention.
UN court to say if Myanmar genocide case can proceed
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UN court to say if Myanmar genocide case can proceed
- The Gambia lodged a case against military-ruled Myanmar for the alleged genocide of Rohingya Muslims
California joins UN health network following US departure from WHO
- California Governor Gavin Newsom decried the United States’ move on Friday, calling it a “reckless decision” that will hurt many people
CALIFORNIA: California said on Friday it will become the first US state to join the World Health Organization’s global outbreak response network following the Trump administration’s decision to pull Washington out of the WHO.
The network, comprised of more than 360 technical institutions, responds to public health events with the deployment of staff and resources to affected countries. It has tackled major public health events, including COVID-19. The state’s decision to join the network comes more than a year after US President Donald Trump gave notice that Washington would depart from the WHO. On Thursday, it officially withdrew from the agency, saying its decision reflected failures in the UN health agency’s management of the pandemic.
California Governor Gavin Newsom decried the United States’ move on Friday, calling it a “reckless decision” that will hurt many people.
“California will not bear witness to the chaos this decision will bring,” Newsom said in a statement. “We will continue to foster partnerships across the globe and remain at the forefront of public health preparedness, including through our membership as the only state in WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert & Response Network.”
The governor’s office said he met with the WHO’s Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week, where they discussed collaborating to detect and respond to emerging public health threats.
The WHO did not immediately respond when reached for comment.
