Excerpt of Foreign Policy op-ed co-authored by GJC President Akila Radhakrishnan.

Last December, reports of a shocking program of forced abortions emerged in Nigeria. The Nigerian military, a Reuters investigation found, has allegedly forcibly terminated the pregnancies of at least 10,000 women and girls who were rescued or returned from Boko Haram-controlled territories in the country’s northeast. A follow-up report found that the army has also massacred children. Both patterns of abuse, Reuters reported, are part of the military’s systematic campaign amid the Boko Haram conflict to end the armed group’s supposed “bloodline.”

Nigerian authorities have rejected these allegations outright, but this is not the first report detailing alleged abuses by the Nigerian military in the Boko Haram conflict. Nor is it the first report to find patterns of violence, including possible crimes against humanity, in which the military has specifically targeted women and girls. For too long, this issue has been ignored by Nigeria’s allies and the United Nations. Now, the international community must act.

Over the past decade, the Nigerian military’s abuses have been well documented. For example, in 2015, Amnesty International issued a report concluding that the military had extrajudicially executed more than 1,200 people, arbitrarily detained at least 20,000 people (leading to at least 7,000 deaths in custody), and committed countless acts of torture in the Boko Haram conflict. These numbers have continued to grow.

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Queer people’s experience of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes is not new. From the British Indian Penal Code of 1860, the Holocaust, the ongoing anti-gay purges in Chechnya, and legal shifts which persecute members of the LGBTQI+ community and allies, LGBTQI+ communities have been, and still are, deliberately targeted by systematic violence and discrimination. Some of these campaigns can be described as mass atrocity crimes, while others sound the alarm and significantly increase risk for the incidence of mass atrocity crimes against LGBTQI+ communities across the world. And yet understanding of this experience is not well-developed nor widely-discussed. In fact, queer people’s experiences can often be deliberately silenced in policy and research on identity-based violence and mass atrocities - a problem which is further compounded by threats to safety faced by queer populations that can make it dangerous for them to make their experiences and expertise heard and accounted for.

As members of the atrocity prevention field, we know that widespread or systematic violent targeting of LGBTQI+ people can often look different from the widespread or systematic violent targeting of ethnic, indigenous, national, religious and racial groups that traditionally dominate the atrocity prevention and response agenda. However, crimes against LGBTQI+ individuals and communities may still meet the conceptual and legal thresholds of mass atrocity crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

We know, too, that the absence of LGBTQI+ professionals and queer analysis from atrocity prevention work normalises and institutionalises pre-existing heteronormative and patriarchal structures. This perpetuates the exclusion of LGBTQI+ communities in - and from - atrocity prevention work.

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The seminar coincides with the six months reporting deadline of Myanmar to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Gambia v. Myanmar Rohingya Genocide. BROUK will also publish its own report to show the real situation on the ground in Rakhine State, and how the genocide of the Rohingya is ongoing.

Moderator:

AKILA RADHAKRISHNAN is the President of the Global Justice Center (GJC). She directs GJC’s strategies and efforts to establish legal precedents protecting human rights and ensuring gender equality.

Speakers:

NAOMI KIKOLER is the director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide. As the Center’s deputy director she led Center’s policy engagement with the United States government and work on Bearing Witness countries, including undertaking the documentation of the commission of genocide by ISIS.

ZOYA PHAN is Campaigns Manager at the advocacy organisation Burma Campaign UK, and co-founder of the charity, Phan Foundation.

TUN KHIN is an ethnic Rohingya Muslim from Arakan (Rakhine) State in Myanmar, the President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK) and a prominent activist for the Rohingya people.

TOMAS QUINTANA, Argentinian lawyer and lead counsel in the current Universal Jurisdiction case pending in Argentina; UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in North Korea and former UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Myanmar.

 

Globalization has increased opportunities to work at the international level. The transition from working at the local level to the global level is fraught with many challenges and success stories. This panel is made up of women who against the odds are representing their countries on the global level and making an impact.

Moderated by Melene Rossouw, our panel comprises of: Naa Adoley Azu, Angela Mudukuti, and Tafadzwa Pasipanodya.

Sexual and gender-based violence against women is rooted in systematic and systemic discrimination of women’s human rights. It is a direct consequence of gross violations of women’s rights and these violations are further exacerbated during times of armed conflict. This erosion, violation of women’s rights and, gender inequality are a clear precursor of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence as mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. While key landmark normative benchmarks have been accomplished over the decades to equip international law to promote women’s rights and gender justice, the prevalence of conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence calls for a recalibration of gender-power dynamics and an elimination of the impunity gap for these heinous crimes. It is time to join forces and advocate for leadership that has the will to move from commitments and declarations to real action towards gender justice. A gender justice framework rooted in a feminist and human-rights-based prevention approach.

The Center for International Human Rights in partnership with the Department of Law at the Free University of Berlin is pleased to present the fifth event in our Transatlantic Forum series, featuring...

Speaker: Jelena Pia-Comella, Adjunct Lecturer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

Discussant: Akila Radhakrishnan, President of the Global Justice Center

Since its establishment at the turn of the century, a central preoccupation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been to catalyze—through the principle of complementarity—the pursuit of criminal accountability at the domestic level. This roundtable discussion will explore what impact the ICC, now operational for twenty years, has had in certain countries, how its interventions have evolved over time, and what challenges it has faced. Participants will also consider broader questions about the future of accountability for atrocity crimes in both international law and politics. Where does international criminal justice today stand as a field and a practice? How should we be thinking about the future of the field? And what role should the ICC play—or not play—in the next twenty years?

Panelists:

• Christian De Vos, Director of Research and Investigations, Physicians for Human Rights
• Angela Mudukuti, Senior Legal Adviser, Global Justice Center
• Sharon Nakandha, Program Officer, Africa Regional Office, Open Society Foundations
• Ruti Teitel, Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law, New York Law School
• Danielle A. Zach (Moderator), The City College of New York

This panel takes post-atrocity resilience not as an individual feature but as the consequence of various social, economic, and political structures on individuals. It aims to garner panelists' views on identifying the mechanisms which either support or harm the resilience of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.

Panelists:

• Laila Khoudeida, Co-founder, Yazda
• Akila Radhakrishnan, President, Global Justice Center
• Jocelyn Getgen Kestenbaum, Clinical Associate Professor of Law and Director, Benjamin B. Ferencz Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention Clinic, Cardozo School of Law
• Tutku Ayhan, Charles E. Scheidt Postdoctoral Research Fellow, I-GMAP (moderator)

An Open Letter to the UN Security Council and Individual UN Member States

We, the undersigned organizations, call on the United Nations Security Council and UN member states to urgently institute a coordinated, global arms embargo on Myanmar in response to the February 1, 2021 military coup that has deprived the people of Myanmar of the right to democratically elect their government. Our concerns are heightened by ongoing violations of human rights and the security forces’ history of grave abuses against peaceful critics of military rule, as well as against the Rohingya and other ethnic minority groups.

Under the commander-in-chief, Sr. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the Myanmar military has detained the elected civilian leaders of the country, nullified the results of the November 2020 democratic elections, and installed a junta, the State Administration Council, under a manufactured “state of emergency.” Since February 1, the junta has increasingly used excessive and at times lethal force at demonstrations; threatened and arbitrarily detained activists, journalists, students, and civil servants; and imposed rolling internet shutdowns that put lives at risk.

Days after the coup, UN Secretary-General António Guterres stated, “We will do everything we can to mobilize all the key actors and international community to put enough pressure on Myanmar to make sure that this coup fails.” The UN special rapporteur on Myanmar has called for targeted UN sanctions on the military and an arms embargo, while the deputy high commissioner for human rights has voiced support for targeted UN sanctions on the coup leaders.

In that spirit, we urge the Security Council to immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Myanmar. Such a resolution should bar the direct and indirect supply, sale, or transfer of all weapons, munitions, and other military-related equipment, including dual-use goods such as vehicles and communications and surveillance equipment, as well as the provision of training, intelligence, and other military assistance. The embargo should be accompanied by robust monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.

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To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations, strongly support the call for a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia and urge your delegation to support such a session without further delay.

Since 4 November 2020, fighting between federal government forces and affiliated militias with forces and militia allied to Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, has reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and caused more than one million people to flee their homes, including at least 57,000 refugees who are now in Sudan. There have been widespread reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses including possible atrocity crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, unlawful killings, widespread looting, and rape and sexual violence against women and girls. There have also been reports of massacres committed along ethnic lines within Tigray, as well as ethnic profiling, discrimination, and hate speech against Tigrayans both within and outside the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also expressed alarm for the “safety and well-being” of the 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, given the unconfirmed but “overwhelming number of reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea,” where they could face persecution. Access to independent humanitarian aid continues to be limited in Tigray despite an agreement reached between the federal government and the UN on 29 November. Journalists critical of the government have been arrested, exacerbating existing restrictions on communication and information from the region.

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Description:
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a great threat to populations already at risk of genocide and crimes against humanity at the hands of their governments. The pandemic may be weaponized by authoritarian states as an opportunity to commit mass atrocities while attention is elsewhere or to deny certain populations their right to health.

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) will host a conversation on the prevention of mass atrocities during the pandemic, to coincide with the August 25 anniversary of attacks by Myanmar security forces on Rohingya Muslim residents in northern Rakhine state, driving hundreds of thousands to live as refugees in neighboring Bangladesh.

Speakers: 
Yee Htun, JD is a lecturer on law and clinical instructor at the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School. She fled Myanmar in 1988.

Akila Radhakrishnan, JD is president of the Global Justice Center, which works to define, establish, and protect human rights and gender equity by enforcing international laws.

Lawrence Woocher, MA is research director at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center and a lecturer at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. He formerly served as senior atrocity prevention fellow with the United States Agency for International Development.

Description:
A conversation with Jennifer Trahan, Clinical Professor at NYU Center for Global Affairs, Moderated by Akila Radhakrishnan, President of the Global Justice Center.

Trahan's book demonstrates how vetoes and veto threats have blocked the Security Council from pursuing measures that could have prevented or alleviated atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes) in places such as Myanmar, Darfur, Syria, and elsewhere and explores how the legality of this practice could be challenged

On 14 November 2019, the International Criminal Court (“ICC” or “the Court”) authorized the Court’s Prosecutor to investigate alleged international crimes occurring during a wave of violence in Rakhine State, Myanmar in 2016 and 2017. The investigation follows a brutal campaign of violence by Myanmar’s security forces against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslims. These so-called “clearance operations” were conducted through widespread and systematic murder, rape and sexual violence, and other abuses that forced more than 740,000 Rohingya to flee to Bangladesh.

The ICC Prosecutor’s investigation, and any prosecutions that result, is one process among many aimed at accountability for crimes committed by Myanmar’s security forces (Tatmadaw). While somewhat limited in scope, the investigation carries the potential to hold individuals responsible for grave violations against the Rohingya and other ethnic minorities.

This fact sheet answers fundamental questions about the ongoing ICC investigation and individual criminal responsibility for crimes committed against the Rohingya.

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The introduction of the Prevention of Violence against Women Law (PoVAW) in Myanmar is an important opportunity for Myanmar to at long last ensure a comprehensive framework for addressing sexual and gender- based violence, bring its domestic laws in line with international obligations, and ensure adequate redress for violence to all women. This requires, however, that Myanmar passes and implements the law in accordance with the highest standards possible; some standards are not discretionary but rather firm commitments Myanmar is required to uphold, including under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Geneva Conventions, and customary international law. Myanmar’s obligation to protect all women from violence is governed by the legal principle of “due diligence,” meaning that the Myanmar government is responsible for taking measures to prevent, investigate, prosecute, punish, and provide reparations for all acts of gender-based violence committed by both private and public officials.

The Myanmar government has long shown a lack of commitment to breaking the cycle of impunity for widespread sexual and gender-based violence, a problem that is exacerbated by broader structural barriers with respect to Myanmar’s military justice system, and a lack of robust domestic options for accountability. Recently, Myanmar has rejected any responsibility for sexual and gender-based violence in its Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE) report, engagement with the case filed by The Gambia at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), nor CEDAW review. The introduction of this law also comes at a critical time of renewed conversations regarding justice and accountability, with specific respect to the crimes committed against the Rohingya, via processes at the ICJ, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and domestic courts in third party states under the theory of universal jurisdiction.

It is imperative that any efforts to draft and pass a new law take meaningful steps towards addressing sexual and gender-based violence. Myanmar has also received consistent recommendations from the CEDAW Committee, United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, and Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar to ensure the new law complies with international standards; however, this version of the law patently does not meet those standards.

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I. Introduction

The Government of Myanmar (the “Government”) is obligated in its third cycle Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”) to provide detailed information on how it has implemented recommendations on human rights protections made during its second cycle UPR in 2015, as well on developments in human rights in Myanmar since 2015. With respect to progress regarding justice & accountability for mass atrocities, legal reform, including with respect to women’s rights, and ending discrimination, the Government has on the whole failed to make meaningful progress on recommendations from the previous UPR. In addition to the lack of progress on key issues that were the subject of concern during the last UPR, the human rights situation in Myanmar has largely regressed, not the least as a result of the genocidal targeting of the Rohingya in so-called “clearance operations” in 2016 and 2017.

The analysis below explains were the Government has not met its international obligations germane to the UPR and previously accepted UPR recommendations. It includes specific recommendations to the Government on meeting its international obligations to prevent and provide justice for mass atrocities in Myanmar, especially sexual and gender-based violence, and to eliminate discriminatory laws and policies.

Download the Full Submission 

 

Speakers:
Honourable Marilou McPhedran, Independent Senator, Parliament of Canada
Her Excellency Jacqueline O’Neill, Ambassador for Women, Peace, and Security, Canada
Honourable Bob Rae, Special Envoy on Humanitarian and Refugee Issues, appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada
Prof. Payam Akhavan, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague; Faculty of Law, McGill University; Counsel for The Gambia at the ICJ in the case of The Gambia v. Myanmar
Prof. Yanghee Lee, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar (May 2014 to 30 April 2020)
Prof. Susan Breau, Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, Canada
Prof. Christine Chinkin, Emerita Professor of International Law, London School of Economics, UK
Prof. Victor V. Ramraj, Faculty of Law and Director, Centre for Asia Pacific Initiatives, University of Victoria, Canada
Prof. John Packer, Associate Professor of Law, Director of the Human Rights Research and Education Centre (HRREC) & Neuberger-Jesin Professor of International Conflict Resolution, University of Ottawa, Canada
Ms. Razia Sultana, Chairperson, Rohingya Women’s Welfare Society, Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
Ms. Wai Wai Nu, Rohingya/Burmese founder, Women’s Peace Network, Yangon, Myanmar
Ms. Akila Radhakrishnan, President, Global Justice Center, New York, USA
Ms. Mavic Cabrera Balleza, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, New York, USA

On 11 November 2019, the Republic of The Gambia filed suit against the Republic of the Union of Myanmar in the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) for violating the Genocide Convention. Two months later at the request of The Gambia, the ICJ ordered the government of Myanmar to take certain actions to protect the Rohingya via “provisional measures” while the case proceeds. This historic lawsuit brings a critical focus to Myanmar’s responsibility as a state for the Rohingya genocide.

The Gambia’s case focuses on the actions of Myanmar’s security forces, starting in October 2016 and then again in August 2017, where they engaged in so-called “clearance operations” against the Rohingya, a distinct Muslim ethnic minority, in Rakhine State. The operations, in particular those that started in August 2017, were characterized by brutal violence and serious human rights violations on a mass scale. Survivors report indiscriminate killings, rape and sexual violence, arbitrary detention, torture, beatings, and forced displacement. As a result, an estimated 745,000 people – mostly ethnic Rohingya – were forced to flee to Bangladesh. The “clearance operations” followed decades of institutionalized discrimination and systematic persecution of the Rohingya, including the passage of laws that stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship and restricted their religious freedoms, as well as reproductive and marital rights.

According to the UN Human Rights Council-mandated Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar (“FFM”), the treatment of the Rohingya population during the “clearance operations” amounts to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, the commission of which evoke specific obligations and responsibility under international law. In its final report, published in September 2019, the FFM concluded that “the State of Myanmar breached its obligation not to commit genocide” and found that Myanmar “continues to harbor genocidal intent” towards the Rohingya, emphasizing the need for accountability.

This fact sheet answers fundamental questions about the ongoing ICJ case, Myanmar’s responsibility for genocide, and its impact on the Rohingya population. (Answers to questions about the early stages of the lawsuit are here.)

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(BANGKOK, April 2, 2020)—The Government of Bangladesh should immediately take all necessary steps to protect Rohingya refugees and nearby host communities in Cox’s Bazar District from COVID-19 infection, said Fortify Rights and 49 human rights organizations in an open letter today. The authorities should immediately lift all restrictions that prevent Rohingya refugees from freely accessing mobile communications and the internet and also halt the construction of fencing aimed to confine Rohingya refugees in camps.

Download the Full Letter 

Your Excellency,

We are writing to you in light of the recently published summary of the final report of Myanmar’s Independent Commission of Enquiry (ICOE), which was issued the same week that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Myanmar to take immediate action to prevent genocide against the country’s persecuted Rohingya minority. In particular, we would like to raise grave concerns regarding the ICOE’s: (1) independence and impartiality; (2) methodology; and (3) flaws in narrative and findings.

The ICOE’s independence and impartiality have been seriously undermined by its reliance on the Office of the President of Myanmar for financial and technical support, as well as by the composition of the Commission itself, which includes at least one official directly implicated in the bulldozing of Rohingya villages damaged during the 2017 crisis in Rakhine State. The executive summary of the ICOE’s report also provides no information as to what sources and materials were relied upon beyond individual interviews, nor how the ICOE corroborated and verified this information, making it impossible to assess the quality of their methodology. Crucially, the ICOE did not interview a single Rohingya refugee in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, regarding the circumstances that resulted in over 700,000 people fleeing the country. Finally, there are serious flaws and misrepresentations in the ICOE’s narrative of the crisis in Rakhine State, including disturbing inaccuracies and omissions in relation to mass rape and widespread sexual violence directed at Rohingya women and girls during the military’s so-called “clearance operations.”

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On January 20, 2020, Myanmar’s Independent Commission of Enquiry (“ICOE”) submitted its final report to Myanmar’s government. The report, which was initially due on July 30, 2019, was instead submitted three days before the International Court of Justice handed down its unanimous decision on provisional measures in The Gambia v. Myanmar. With the mandate to “investigate the allegations of human rights violations and related issues, following the terrorist attacks by ARSA,” Myanmar has relied on the work of the ICOE since its creation to object to international efforts, including those of the UN Security Council, to ensure accountability for the crimes against the Rohingya.

The ICOE is not the first, but the eighth ad-hoc commission and board set up by Myanmar since 2012 with regard to the situation in Rakhine State; however, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar has determined that none of these commissions, including the ICOE, meet the standards of an “impartial, independent, effective and thorough human rights investigation.” This Factsheet seeks to provide context and analysis on the ICOE and its final report and can be used by the international community to understand the report and its analysis.

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