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Why the ICJ Is Trying to Protect Myanmar’s Rohingya

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Myanmar
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The International Court of Justice issued an important decision aimed at protecting Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, but its impact is unclear.

The wheels of international justice turn slowly, but this week they sped up to protect the rights of the Rohingya, an ethnic Muslim minority population in Myanmar that has suffered brutal assaults by government forces since 2016. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the primary judicial organ of the United Nations, ordered Myanmar to cease and desist all forms of alleged genocide against the Rohingya and to preserve evidence about alleged genocidal acts. How Myanmar intends to respond to the ruling remains to be seen.

A Case for Genocide Takes Shape

UN fact-finding reports from the last two years recorded a multitude of atrocities, including mass killing and displacement and "overwhelming levels of brutality, combined with the physical destruction of the home of the [Rohingya], in every sense and on every level." An estimated one million Rohingya fled across the border into Bangladesh, where they remain packed in vast refugee camps.

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