The verdict will be handed down in the Peace Palace, the seat of the International Court of Justice (AFP Photo)
The top United Nations court will on Nov. 19 deliver a landmark ruling on whether Myanmar’s crackdown against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority constituted a genocide, officials have said.
Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have for seven years been weighing accusations by The Gambia that Myanmar’s brutal repression of the Rohingya breached the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention.
While the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling that Myanmar committed genocide would heap more international pressure on its leader Min Aung Hlaing.
He commanded the military during the Rohingya crackdown before ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup.
This year he was installed as civilian president following deeply restricted elections and is waging a diplomatic campaign for legitimacy which may be complicated by the ruling.
The judgement may also be seen as justice for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya.
Legal experts are closely watching the decision by the ICJ, which rules in disputes between countries, for clues as to how the court might sway in the seminal genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel over its campaign in Gaza.
Myanmar has always denied carrying out a genocide against the Rohingya, arguing its actions targeted a military uprising from insurgents after a series of attacks left a dozen security personnel dead.
The crackdown by the Myanmar army and Buddhist militias forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighboring Bangladesh, bringing with them harrowing accounts of gang rape and mass executions.
