The International Court of Justice has opened landmark hearings on the merits of the genocide case brought by Gambia against Myanmar, beginning a three-week phase of oral argument at the Peace Palace in The Hague that will determine whether Myanmar breached its obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

The hearings, which opened on 19 December 2025, follow years of preliminary legal argument. ICJ President Judge Iwasawa Yuji outlined a detailed schedule for the proceedings, including two rounds of pleadings by each party and closed sessions to hear testimony from witnesses called by both Gambia and Myanmar.

The case turns on Myanmar's conduct as a State party to the Genocide Convention. ICJ judges will hear oral arguments from both sides, examine witnesses and experts, and decide whether Myanmar violated the treaty through acts allegedly committed during the so-called "clearance operations" carried out by the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw.

Gambia's opening

Speaking on behalf of Gambia, Attorney General and Minister of Justice Dawda Jallow told the court that his country brought the case "after reviewing credible reports of the most brutal and vicious violations imaginable" committed against the Rohingya, a Muslim minority concentrated in Myanmar's Rakhine province.

"By all measures, this case is not about esoteric issues of international law," Jallow said. "It is about real people, real stories, and a real group of human beings."

Gambia filed its application in November 2019. The case alleges that Myanmar breached the Genocide Convention during the clearance operations, which escalated sharply in 2017. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighbouring Bangladesh amid widespread killings, sexual violence, village burnings and other abuses. Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, described the situation at the time as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing."

A UN Human Rights Council-mandated fact-finding mission reported in 2018 that it had reasonable grounds to conclude that serious crimes under international law — including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes — had been committed.

Nearly one million Rohingya remain refugees in camps in Bangladesh. Countless others are displaced or trapped inside Myanmar in dire conditions.

A jurisdictional battle already resolved

The path to the merits phase was not straightforward. In January 2020, the Court unanimously ordered provisional measures against Myanmar, directing the State to take all steps within its power to prevent genocidal acts against the Rohingya, to preserve evidence, and to report regularly to the Court on its compliance.

Myanmar challenged the Court's jurisdiction. In July 2022, the judges ruled that they were competent to hear the case, clearing the way for the merits proceedings now underway.

Gambia has not acted alone in pressing its interpretation of the Convention. Eleven States made written submissions in support of Gambia's reading of the treaty.

Accountability at the centre

Addressing the judges, Jallow argued that Myanmar remains trapped in "a cycle of atrocities and impunity," noting that no one has been held accountable for crimes committed against the Rohingya.

He also pointed to the February 2021 military coup, which overthrew Myanmar's civilian government and plunged the country into renewed nationwide conflict.

"Accountability is imperative," Jallow said, warning that impunity risks the repetition of atrocity crimes.

What comes next

Myanmar is expected to begin presenting its arguments later this week. The Court's final judgment will be legally binding, though it could take months or longer to arrive after the hearings conclude.

The stakes for practitioners are distinctive. The ICJ, as the United Nations' principal judicial organ, settles legal disputes between States and issues advisory opinions on questions of international law. It does not try individuals; it determines State responsibility. A merits judgment against Myanmar would therefore establish the State's responsibility for treaty breaches under the Genocide Convention rather than attach criminal liability to any individual — a determination that could carry consequences for sanctions regimes, engagement policy, and the framing of parallel accountability efforts elsewhere. For governments and counsel advising on interstate disputes, the case also confirms the procedural route by which one State party, Gambia, has standing to litigate the treatment of a national minority in another State party under the Convention's dispute settlement clause, supported by a coalition of intervening States.

For now, the courtroom in The Hague turns to the evidence. Over the coming three weeks, the judges will weigh two rounds of pleadings from each party and closed-door witness testimony before retiring to consider a judgment that both States — and the roughly one million Rohingya still living in refugee camps in Bangladesh — have waited years to see.