The Foreword
As the world’s highest court prepares to rule in a historic genocide case, the U.S. retreats from aid and attacks international justice
It’s been nine years since the Myanmar military and its operatives unleashed a catastrophic wave of violence against the Rohingya people of Myanmar in Rakhine State. At the time, I stood on the banks of the Naf River separating Myanmar from Bangladesh and watched the consequences of genocide arrive.
Since then, not a single Myanmar official has faced trial for these crimes against the Rohingya people. But something important has changed.
This January, I sat inside the Peace Palace in The Hague as a member of The Gambia’s delegation before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). For three weeks, the world’s highest court heard the merits of The Gambia’s case alleging that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya. The hearings concluded on January 29, and the court’s judgment is now pending and expected later this year.
For Rohingya survivors everywhere who have spent decades waiting for the world to recognize what has been done to them, a ruling confirming Myanmar’s responsibility for the genocide would be historic. The ICJ is not a criminal court, and it cannot send Myanmar generals to prison. But it can determine that a state committed genocide. It can establish an authoritative historical and legal record and order reparations. And its judgment could shape how genocide is understood and proven in cases far beyond Myanmar.
Sitting in that courtroom, I kept thinking about the building itself. The Peace Palace in The Hague owes its existence in significant part to an American immigrant and his extraordinary fortune.
Andrew Carnegie, the Scottish-born American steel magnate who became one of the richest people in the world, gave $1.5 million in 1903 — an astronomical amount at the time — to construct a courthouse and library in The Hague devoted to resolving international disputes through law rather than war. The palace opened in 1913 and houses the ICJ today.
To be sure, Carnegie was no saint. He made his fortune during an era of brutal industrial capitalism and bitter labor conflict. But what he chose to do with his enormous wealth is worth remembering. He funded libraries, universities, and institutions dedicated to peace. In 1910, he gave $10 million to create the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Four years later, he provided $2 million to establish the Church Peace Union, now known as the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where I interned as a young graduate student at Columbia University.
Fast forward to our current era: One of the richest men of our age, Elon Musk, helped lead an effort to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, while the Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), undermining an institution created to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.
The contrast is not merely philosophical. It can be measured in human lives. Since the Trump administration dismantled USAID and slashed foreign assistance in 2025, American and other donor cuts have deepened an already severe humanitarian funding crisis in Myanmar and Bangladesh. The Rohingya are paying the price. Food, health care, education, and protection have all come under pressure. More Rohingya are boarding dangerous boats bound for Malaysia and Indonesia, a worsening trend we have documented for many years. Last year was the deadliest on record for Rohingya at sea, according to the U.N. refugee agency, with nearly 900 people reported dead or missing in the Andaman Sea and Bay of Bengal, and that toll does not capture Rohingya killed or disappeared at the hands of human trafficking syndicates.
This is the cruel paradox of the Rohingya’s ninth genocide anniversary this year. At the very moment when international justice may finally be approaching a historic judgment on the crimes committed against the Rohingya, the international commitment to keeping Rohingya survivors alive and safe is weakening.
The U.S. should be moving in precisely the opposite direction. Washington has already officially determined that the Myanmar military committed genocide and crimes against humanity against the Rohingya. Republicans and Democrats alike should resist President Trump’s deadly retreat from America’s longstanding support for humanitarian assistance and justice for the people of Myanmar. Congress and the administration should ensure that humanitarian funding for Rohingya refugees continues and is protected. And the U.S. should press other governments to fill remaining gaps rather than accepting the steady degradation of conditions in the camps, which only serve militant groups and human traffickers who prey on Rohingya desperation.
Governments should impose coordinated targeted sanctions on military officials responsible for mass atrocities and restrict the weapons, money, and resources that enable them. And the U.S. should, as it has in the past, continue to support efforts to collect and preserve evidence for future prosecutions.
Instead, President Trump’s sanctions against the ICC have made it unlawful for Americans to provide assistance to its Prosecutor. Those sanctions prevented me from continuing some of my own work, including providing the Court with evidence and information about atrocities in Myanmar. I filed a federal lawsuit challenging these sanctions, arguing that the government cannot use economic sanctions to prohibit constitutionally protected free speech. In July 2025, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction protecting me and my co-plaintiff, human rights lawyer Akila Radhakrishnan, from enforcement of the sanctions while our case proceeds, finding that we were likely to succeed on our First Amendment claim. The litigation continues.
The irony should not be lost on anyone. An American fortune helped build the Peace Palace because one of the wealthiest men of his era believed law could replace violence. More than a century later, American power is being used to weaken international justice institutions while American aid is being withdrawn from some of the world’s most vulnerable people.
That does not have to be America’s role. The forthcoming judgment from the ICJ at the Peace Palace in The Hague may finally deliver one measure of justice for the Rohingya people. The U.S. should help ensure that it is not the only one.
Matthew Smith is Chief Executive Officer and founder at Fortify Rights.