Aung San Suu Kyi to Defend Myanmar in ICJ

• 11 Dec 2019

• Recently, Gambia has filed an application at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing Myanmar of violating the 1948 Genocide Convention.
  
  • It is the first international legal attempt to bring Myanmar to ICJ over alleged mass killings of the Rohingya minority in 2017.
• Muslim-majority Gambia, has filed this application on behalf of the 57-nation Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
• Aung San Suu Kyi will defend Myanmar in the Hague against accusations of genocide. She is a Myanmar’s State Counsellor and Nobel Peace laureate (awarded in 1990).
• Myanmar, however, faces a number of legal challenges over the fate of the Rohingya, including a probe by the International Criminal Court (a separate war crimes tribunal) in the Hague and a lawsuit in Argentina.

Convention on Genocide

• It was adopted in 1948 in response to the atrocities committed during World War II and a UN resolution which recognised that "genocide is an international crime, which entails the national and international responsibility of individual persons and states."
• The Convention on Genocide was among the first United Nations (UN) conventions addressing humanitarian issues.
• The Convention has since then been widely accepted by the international community and ratified by a majority of States.

International Criminal Court (ICC)

• It is governed by an international treaty called 'The Rome Statute’ which was adopted in 1998. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world’s first permanent international criminal court.
• Headquarters: Hague, Netherlands.

International Court of Justice (ICJ)

• The ICJ was established in 1945 by the United Nations charter and started working in April 1946.
• It is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, situated at the Peace Palace in the Hague (Netherlands).

Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)

• The OIC was formed in 1969 after a summit in Rabat, the Kingdom of Morocco on 25 September 1969.
• The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) is among the largest inter-governmental organizations in the world.
• Headquarters: Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
• It has 57 member states and 12 observers including the United Nations