SHAFAQNA- Five European countries and Canada have teamed up to join the genocide case over Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya Muslims.
Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain filed a joint declaration of intervention with the case, lodged by The Gambia in 2019, the United Nations’ highest court said late on Thursday (16 Nov. 2023).
The group cited “common interest in the accomplishment of the high purposes” of the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of genocide. The court said that The Maldives has filed a separate declaration accusing Myanmar of genocide.
Under ICJ’s rules, the declarations mean these countries will be able to make legal arguments in the case brought forward in 2019 following international outrage at the treatment of the Muslim-minority Rohingya community.
A UN’s fact-finding mission concluded that a 2017 military campaign by Myanmar that drove 730,000 Rohingya into neighbouring Bangladesh had included “genocidal acts”.