Legal Thresholds at The Hague

Gambia’s arguments at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are designed to clear the highest evidentiary and legal bar in international law: proving state responsibility for genocide. Addressing judges on Monday, Gambia said Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya was not incidental to counterinsurgency but a sustained campaign aimed at destroying a protected group. The case is the first genocide proceeding the ICJ has heard in full in more than a decade, underscoring its procedural and symbolic weight within the United Nations system.

Gambia’s Minister of Justice Dawda Jallow said “They have been targeted for destruction. Myanmar has denied them their dream. In fact, it turned their lives into a nightmare subjecting them to the most horrific violence and destruction one could imagine.” The language tracks the Genocide Convention’s requirement to show intent, not only scale.

“They have been targeted”

The case stems from Myanmar’s 2017 military offensive in Rakhine state, which forced at least 730,000 Rohingya to flee into neighboring Bangladesh. Refugees described killings, mass rape, and arson. A United Nations fact-finding mission later concluded that the operation included “genocidal acts.” Myanmar’s authorities rejected that finding, arguing the campaign was a legitimate counterterrorism response to attacks by Muslim militants.

Gambia filed the case in 2019, acting with backing from the 57-nation Organization for Islamic Cooperation. During preliminary hearings that year, Myanmar’s then leader Aung San Suu Kyi dismissed the genocide allegations as “incomplete and misleading,” setting the tone for a prolonged legal contest. The current hearings mark the first time Rohingya victims’ accounts will be heard by an international court, though the sessions will be closed to the public and media for sensitivity and privacy reasons.

Justice Sought, Politics Loom

Rohingya refugees say the hearings carry expectations built over years of displacement. “We are hoping for a positive result that will tell the world that Myanmar committed genocide, and we are the victims of that and we deserve justice,” Yousuf Ali, a 52-year-old refugee who says he was tortured by Myanmar’s military, told Reuters in The Hague.

The hearings are scheduled to span three weeks while their implications extend far beyond Myanmar. The outcome is widely seen as relevant to other genocide cases before the court, including South Africa’s case against Israel over the war in Gaza.

Myanmar’s internal context has shifted sharply since the case was filed. In 2021, the military toppled the elected civilian government and violently suppressed pro-democracy protests, triggering a nationwide armed rebellion. The country is now holding phased elections criticized by the United Nations, some Western countries, and human rights groups as neither free nor fair.