Top UN court to rule Nov 19 on Myanmar's Rohingya genocide case

NETHERLANDS, Nov 4: The top United Nations court will on November 19 deliver a landmark ruling on whether Myanmar's crackdown against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority constituted a genocide, officials said on Tuesday.

Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have for seven years been weighing accusations by The Gambia that Myanmar's brutal repression of the Rohingya breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

While the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling that Myanmar committed genocide would heap more international pressure on its leader Min Aung Hlaing.

He commanded the military during the Rohingya crackdown before ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a 2021 coup.

This year he was installed as civilian president following deeply restricted elections and is waging a diplomatic campaign for legitimacy which may be complicated by the ruling.�" AFP