Daily Times

The International Court of Justice has come up with a poor decision on the unloved Rohingya population of Myanmar after months of deliberation, and has ordered the Myanmar regime to take urgent measures to protect its Muslim Rohingya population from persecution and atrocities, and preserve evidence of alleged crimes against them. The 17-judge court’s decision, on a plea by a small Muslim African country, Gambia, deals with the plaintiff’s request for preliminary measures. The mild decision has some harsh expressions in the summery of the decision. Presiding judge Abdulqawi Yousuf wrote that the Rohingyas were ‘at serious risk of genocide’, calling for measures to be taken by the Myanmar regime within their power to prevent acts prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention. The ruling seeks report on the implementation of the measures in four months. The order, however, does not order the regime to repatriate 730,000 Rohingyas refugees from Bangladesh camps. The ruling, however, reads: “Moreover, the court is of the opinion that the steps which [Myanmar] claimed to have taken to facilitate the return of Rohingya refugees present in Bangladesh, to promote ethnic reconciliation, peace and stability in Rakhine State, and to make its military accountable for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, do not appear sufficient.” The decision of the international body may not change the conditions of the displaced Muslim population overnight but it is good to see that such verdict has been delivered. The court also called the Myanmar civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi to appear before the judges and explain her position on the allegation, another sign of strong accountability by the top UN forum.

The verdict, however, sets a precedent and there is an opportunity for Pakistan to move the ICJ on the matter of violation of human rights and lockdown of eight million Kashmiri people by Indian forces in occupied Kashmir. And in this regard, noted lawyer Akram Sheikh has written a letter to the federal government to move the ICJ to scrutinise the acts of violence being committed by the Indian government and its security forces in India-held Kashmir for a long time, and especially, in the wake of the withdrawal of the valley’s special status of the valley from the Indian constitution on August 5 last year. Hopefully this particular story will not get any worse. *