Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar)

In 2019, the Republic of the Gambia (the Gambia) (plaintiff) instituted proceedings against the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (Myanmar) (defendant) in the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Gambia alleged that Myanmar had breached and was continuing to breach the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) by persecuting the Rohingya Muslim population using mass murder, rape, and systematic burning of Rohingya villages. As a threshold matter, the parties disputed whether the Gambia had standing to invoke Myanmar’s responsibility under the convention to refrain from genocide, and thus whether the ICJ had jurisdiction to hear the Gambia’s claim. Myanmar argued that only a contracting state adversely affected by another contracting state’s alleged wrongful conduct could institute proceedings to enforce the other state’s responsibility to refrain from genocide. Because the Gambia had not specifically suffered any adverse impact from Myanmar’s conduct, Myanmar claimed that the Gambia lacked standing. Myanmar noted that Bangladesh, which had received a significant number of refugees, was better situated to institute proceedings but was precluded from doing so because it had not ratified the convention provision allowing parties to submit disputes to the ICJ. In response to Myanmar, the Gambia argued that all parties to the convention have a common interest in all other parties’ compliance. A breach of the convention’s obligations therefore injured all contracting parties, giving any one of them standing to institute proceedings against the breaching state. The ICJ considered the parties’ arguments.