Military Junta Restructure Legal Team for ICJ Rohingya Genocide Case

The Myanmar military regime has organized a new legal team led by its foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, to present the defense in the Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

The regime’s order restructuring the committee, which was previously led by detained State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was announced in a bulletin published by the Myanmar Gazette on Thursday.

After a brutal military crackdown in the western state of Rakhine in 2017 that forced more than 700,000 Rohingya to flee across the border to neighboring Bangladesh, the African nation of Gambia in November 2019 brought a case at the ICJ—which is an organ of the UN and is also known as the World Court—accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against the Rohingya. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi defended the country against the charge in December 2019.

The panel has eight members. Among them are two former military officers—U Wunna Maung Lwin, who will serve as chairman; and the regime’s planning, finance and industry minister, U Win Shein—and two serving lieutenant generals: Yar Pyae and Adjutant General Myo Zaw Thein.

The other members of the panel are the junta’s minister for international cooperation, U Ko Ko Hlaing, as vice chairman; its new union attorney general, Daw Thida Oo; its deputy foreign minister, U Kyaw Myo Htut; and Daw Khin Oo Hlaing, who is said to be an international criminal law expert and also a member of a seven-member advisory board to the regime.