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How Statelessness Matters to Atrocity Prevention: Lessons from the Rohingya Case

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2022

Katherine G. Southwick*
Affiliation:
Senior Genocide Prevention Adviser (Contractor), International Criminal Justice Leadership Project, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The views presented here are the author's own views and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Extract

The plight of the Rohingya, a persecuted minority from western Myanmar, highlights basic yet underexamined links between statelessness and mass atrocities. In turn, the Rohingya case underscores how statelessness matters to law and practice regarding atrocity prevention, and suggests that norms to prevent statelessness and secure nationality rights warrant greater emphasis in the field of atrocity prevention.

Type
Mass Atrocities and Statelessness: (Re)considering the Case of the Rohingya
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The American Society of International Law.

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Footnotes

This panel was convened at 1:45 p.m., Thursday, March 25, 2021, by its moderator Amal de Chickera of the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, who introduced the panelists: Wai Wai Nu of the Women's Peace Network, Myanmar; Regina Paulose of the Common Good Foundations; Akila Radhakrishnan of the Global Justice Center; and Katherine G. Southwick of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Contractor).

References

1 David Scheffer, Genocide and Atrocity Crimes, 1 Genocide Stud. & Prev. 229 (2006).

2 See, e.g., GA Res. 60/1, paras. 138–40 (2005). Ethnic cleansing has no formal legal definition, but its constitutive acts could fall under the other three crimes depending on the presence or absence of other criminal elements. See, e.g., UN Secretary-General, Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 (1992), paras. 134-37, UN Doc. S/1994/674 (May 20, 1994), available at https://www.icty.org/x/file/About/OTP/un_commission_of_experts_report1994_en.pdf.

3 Scott Straus, Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention 53 (2016).

4 UNHCR, Nationality and Statelessness: A Handbook for Parliamentarians 38 (2005).

5 Id. at 34.

6 Straus, supra note 3, at 56, 76.

7 Gregory Stanton, The Ten Stages of Genocide, Genocide Watch (1986), at http://genocidewatch.net/genocide-2/8-stages-of-genocide.

8 United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, The Nuremberg Race Laws, in Holocaust Encyclopedia, at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-nuremberg-race-laws.

9 Avalon Project, Judgement: Frick, at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/judfrick.asp.

10 Daniel Feierstein, Genocide as a Social Practice: Reorganizing Society Under the Nazis and Argentina's Military Juntas 104–27 (2014)

11 Penny Green, Thomas Mcmanus & Alicia De La Cour Venning, Countdown To Annihilation: Genocide in Myanmar 53 (2015).

12 See, e.g., Fortify Rights, Policies of Persecution: Ending Abusive State Policies Against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (2014).

13 UN Human Rights Council, Report of the Detailed Findings of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, para. 491, UN Doc. A/HRC/39/CRP.2 (2018).

14 Jacob Blaustein, Institute for Human Rights, Manual on Human Rights and the Prevention of Genocide 10 (2017).

15 Coman Kenny, Legislated Out of Existence: Mass Arbitrary Deprivation of Nationality Resulting in Statelessness as an International Crime, 20 Int'l Crim. L. Rev. 1026 (2020).

16 Priya Pillai, Taking Statelessness Seriously: Linkages to Mass Atrocities?, Opinio Juris (Jan. 28, 2019), at http://opiniojuris.org/2019/01/28/taking-statelessness-seriously-linkages-to-mass-atrocities; Kenny, supra note 14, at 1026.

17 Id. (citing Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Art. 8).

18 Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bos. & Herz. v. Serb. & Montenegro), 2007 ICJ Rep. 43, para. 431 (Feb. 26).

19 Id.

20 Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Gamb. v. Myan.), Request for the Indication of Provisional Measures, Order, 2020 ICJ Rep. 3, para. 79 (Jan. 23).

21 Erin Rosenberg, Practical Prevention: How the Genocide Convention's Obligation to Prevent Applies to Myanmar, Report #2: The Denial of the Right to Citizenship and the Right to Participate in Public Affairs, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide 11–12 (2020).

22 Laura van Waas, Civil Genocide: Why Threats to Citizenship Must Not Be Ignored, Reuters (Sept. 24, 2018), at https://news.trust.org/item/20180921093011-nitr0.