The United Nations' highest court is ruling Friday on whether to proceed with a landmark case that accuses Myanmar's rulers of genocide against the country's mainly Muslim Rohingya minority.
The International Court of Justice is set to deliver its decision on Myanmar's claims that the Hague-based court does not have jurisdiction and that the case filed by the tiny African nation of Gambia in 2019 is inadmissible.
Amid international outrage at the treatment of the Rohingya, Gambia filed the case with the world court alleging that Myanmar is breaching the genocide convention. The nation argued that both Gambia and Myanmar are parties to the convention and that all signatories have a duty to ensure it is enforced.
They also claimed that Gambia could not bring the case to court as it was not directly linked to the events in Myanmar and that a legal dispute did not exist between the two countries before the case was filed. Myanmar’s military launched what it called a clearance campaign in Rakhine state in 2017 in the aftermath of an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh and Myanmar security forces have been accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes.