The genocide case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar has reached its concluding stage before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague, according to the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect.

The case, formally titled Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (The Gambia v. Myanmar), concerns allegations that Myanmar violated the 1948 Genocide Convention through its treatment of the Rohingya population. The Gambia filed the application in November 2019, invoking the dispute settlement mechanism of the Genocide Convention, to which both states are parties.

The ICJ has now arrived at the final phase of the proceedings. The case has progressed through multiple stages since its filing, including a preliminary objections phase, during which Myanmar challenged the Court's jurisdiction and the admissibility of The Gambia's claims. The Court rejected those objections in a 2022 judgment, clearing the way for the merits to be heard.

The proceedings also included an earlier interim measure. In January 2020, the Court ordered Myanmar to take measures to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya and to preserve evidence, acting under Article 41 of the ICJ Statute pending a final ruling.

The concluding stage marks the last procedural step before the Court's judges retire to deliberate. A final judgment on the merits will determine whether Myanmar bears state responsibility for breaches of the Genocide Convention.

For practitioners, the significance is considerable. A merits judgment from the ICJ would clarify the scope of state responsibility under the Genocide Convention, including the obligations to prevent and punish genocide. It would also reinforce the precedent, established at the jurisdictional stage, that any state party to the Convention may invoke the responsibility of another state party — a finding that allowed The Gambia, not itself the victim state, to bring the claim.

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, which has followed the proceedings closely, highlighted the case as a test of international accountability mechanisms for atrocity crimes. The organization noted that the proceedings represent one of the most significant genocide convention cases to reach the world court in recent years.

The ICJ has not yet announced the date of its final judgment. Judgments of the Court are final, binding on the parties, and without appeal under Article 60 of the ICJ Statute.