(THE HAGUE, November 27, 2024)—On November 27, 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan announced that his office is seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing “for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh.” This is the first time the Prosecutor’s office has sought an arrest warrant for someone from Myanmar. The ICC Prosecutor further announced that more applications for arrest warrants will follow.
In April 2018, then-ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda cited Fortify Rights’s work and evidence in her request for jurisdiction to investigate atrocities against Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh. In September 2018, the Pre-Trial Chamber affirmed the ICC’s jurisdiction over the deportation of Rohingya and related crimes. This, in part, paved the way for the current prosecutor’s request for an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing.
Fortify Rights has produced considerable evidence in support of these efforts. For example, in July 2018, in a 160-page report, Fortify Rights revealed the identities of 22 high-ranking officials in the Myanmar military and police, including Min Aung Hlaing, who could be held criminally liable for their role in the violent attacks against Rohingya civilians in 2016 and 2017. More recently, on March 24, 2022, Fortify Rights and the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School identified 61 senior Myanmar military and police officials who should be investigated and possibly prosecuted for international crimes committed against Myanmar civilians after the February 2021 coup d’etat.
Fortify Rights continues to advocate for ICC member states to refer the situation in Myanmar to the Prosecutor’s office. Although the International Criminal Court is investigating atrocities committed by the Myanmar military against the Rohingya, and the state of Myanmar is currently on trial for the Rohingya genocide at the International Court of Justice, there are currently no criminal investigations by prosecutors into the junta’s more recent post-coup crimes. Fortify Rights is working to change that.