What Myanmar’s genocide defense reveals about global justice

Over the past several days, the hearings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague have revealed something far more consequential than a procedural dispute over jurisdiction or representation. They have exposed a deliberate and coherent legal strategy by Myanmar’s military rulers: the systematic erasure of the Rohingya as a people from the courtroom itself.

Rather than grappling with the substance of the genocide allegations brought under the Genocide Convention, the junta’s lawyers retreated almost entirely into abstraction. Their submissions were dominated by arguments about standing, admissibility, timelines and who has the authority to speak for Myanmar. What was striking was not simply what was said but what was consistently avoided. The Rohingya were rarely named. Their identity, history and continued suffering were conspicuously absent from a case that exists solely because of crimes committed against them.

This was not an oversight. It was a strategy.

Genocide, under international law, begins with the targeting of a protected group. The crime is not only about mass killing, it is about the destruction of a people as such. In Myanmar, that process unfolded over decades through the denial of citizenship, restrictions on movement, exclusion from education and the systematic delegitimization of Rohingya identity. By the time the military launched its 2016-2017 “clearance operations,” the Rohingya had already been rendered legally and politically invisible within the state.

Rather than grappling with the substance of the genocide allegations, the junta’s lawyers retreated into abstraction

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

What the recent hearings at the world court demonstrate is that this logic of erasure has now migrated from the battlefield and bureaucracy into the courtroom. The junta’s legal approach seeks to strip the case of its human core and reframe it as a technical dispute between states. By doing so, it avoids confronting the central question before the court: whether specific people were targeted for destruction because of who they are.

This matters because genocide law cannot function in the abstract. The Genocide Convention was drafted in the shadow of the Holocaust precisely to prevent legal formalism from shielding perpetrators. It requires courts to identify victims, name protected groups and assess intent. When a respondent state refuses even to acknowledge the existence of the group at the center of the case, it is not mounting a defense in good faith; it is attempting to hollow out the law itself.

The danger is that proceduralism becomes complicity.

International courts are, by design, cautious institutions. They prize jurisdictional clarity, procedural fairness and state consent. But when those instincts dominate to the exclusion of substance, they can be exploited by regimes that understand how to weaponize the legal process. The junta’s approach at The Hague reflects a broader pattern seen in other atrocity cases: delay justice long enough, bury facts under procedure and eventually the political urgency dissipates.

For the Rohingya, time is not neutral. Nearly 1 million remain in refugee camps in Bangladesh. Conditions in Rakhine State have deteriorated further, with new rounds of violence, restrictions on humanitarian access and deepening food insecurity. Each year of legal delay entrenches displacement and normalizes a reality in which return, citizenship and justice drift further out of reach.

If the International Court of Justice allows the case to be reduced to questions of representation and standing without insisting on engagement with the underlying crimes, it risks setting a dangerous precedent. Other regimes accused of mass atrocities will learn the lesson quickly: you do not need to refute the facts if you can avoid discussing them altogether.

Others accused of atrocities will learn quickly: you do not need to refute the facts if you can avoid discussing them altogether

Dr. Azeem Ibrahim

This is not simply a problem for Myanmar or the Rohingya. It goes to the heart of whether genocide law remains fit for purpose in an era of fragmented states, contested sovereignty and authoritarian resilience. Many contemporary conflicts involve regimes that lack full territorial control or popular legitimacy. If such actors are nonetheless able to use procedural shields to evade scrutiny, the deterrent value of international justice will erode rapidly.

The world court does not need to abandon legal rigor to avoid this outcome. But it does need to recognize that silence can be as consequential as speech. When a respondent refuses to name the victims of alleged genocide, the court should treat that refusal as legally and morally significant. Naming matters because law is not merely a technical system, it is also a language of recognition.

There is also a broader political implication. Muslim-majority states, many of which supported the Rohingya case, have a stake in how this moment is handled. The credibility of international law in protecting vulnerable Muslim populations depends not only on access to courts, but on whether those courts insist on confronting reality rather than retreating into abstraction.

The Rohingya case was always going to be a test of the international system’s willingness to confront power. What the recent hearings have shown is that the test has shifted. The question now is whether international law will allow perpetrators to continue erasing victims, this time with footnotes and legal citations, or whether it will insist that genocide cannot be litigated without naming those it sought to destroy.

If denial is allowed to masquerade as legal argument, the damage will extend far beyond Myanmar. It will signal to future perpetrators that genocide need not be defended on the facts, only managed through procedure. That would not be a narrow legal failure. It would be a systemic one.

Justice for the Rohingya depends on more than eventual rulings. It depends on whether the law is willing, at the most basic level, to say who they are.

• Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is the director of special initiatives at the Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy in Washington, DC. X: @AzeemIbrahim