Rohingya Genocide and Humanitarian Crisis in the Perspective of International Refugee Law

The plight of the Rohingya is one of the world order's most urgent humanitarian crises and legal challenges. The Myanmar government and army have been systematically discriminating against the population of the Rohingya, a stateless population, over years of state-sponsored discrimination and periodic violence. Focusing on crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and genocide, this book offers a critical assessment of the situation from the perspectives of international criminal law and refugee law. The paper draws on primary sources such as the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1967 Protocol, the International Court of Justice's temporary measures in The Gambia v. Myanmar, the UN Fact-Finding Mission Monitoring reports, and scholarly writings, to assess the merits and shortcomings of the existing legal framework.It also examines the role of regional and international bodies such as the UN Security Council, ASEAN, OIC, ICC and UNHCR in regards to accountability and protection. The study suggests that while the international refugee law is critical in delivering rudimentary protection for forcibly displaced people, it cannot deal with the intricacies of issues such as state-sponsored genocide and displacement of stateless persons. Ineffective enforcement and Myanmar's non-ratification of critical treaties, lack of legal commitments by many refugee-responsible states and geopolitical issues limit protection. The article concludes with a number of proposed changes to international refugee protection, better burden-shifting, better accountability mechanisms and better international responses to events such as the Rohingya crisis and other genocides and mass atrocities.