The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to open a landmark case accusing Myanmar of committing genocide against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.
The hearings will start at 09:00 GMT today, Monday, January 12, 2026 and span three weeks.
The trial is the first genocide case that the United Nations’s top court will take up in full in more than a decade, and its outcome will have repercussions beyond Myanmar, likely affecting South Africa’s petition against Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza.
The hearings at the ICJ will mark the first time that Rohingya victims of the alleged atrocities will be heard by an international court, although those sessions will be closed to the public and the media for sensitivity and privacy reasons.
The Gambia filed the case against Myanmar at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, in 2019, two years after the country’s military launched an offensive that forced some 750,000 Rohingya from their homes and into neighbouring Bangladesh.
The refugees recounted mass killings, rape and arson attacks. A UN fact-finding mission at the time concluded that the 2017 offensive had included “genocidal acts.”
However, authorities in Myanmar rejected the report, saying its military offensive was a legitimate counterterrorism campaign in response to attacks by alleged Rohingya armed groups.
During the preliminary hearings in the ICJ case in 2019, Myanmar’s then-leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, rejected The Gambia’s accusations of genocide as “incomplete and misleading.” She was later toppled by the military in a coup in 2021.
The power grab plunged Myanmar into chaos, with the military’s violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests sparking a nationwide armed rebellion.
While Myanmar’s military continues to deny the accusations of genocide, the opposition National Unity Government (NUG), established by elected lawmakers after the 2021 coup, said it has “accepted and welcomed” the jurisdiction of the ICJ, adding that it has “withdrawn all preliminary objections” previously submitted on the case.
In a statement ahead of the hearing, the NUG acknowledged the government’s failures, which it said “enabled grave atrocities” to take place against minority groups.
It also acknowledged the name Rohingya, which the previous elected government, including Aung San Suu Kyi, had refused to do. “We are committed to ensuring such crimes are never repeated,” the NUG said.
Start of Trial Beckons Renewed Hope
Wai Wai Nu, the Head of Myanmar’s Women’s Peace Network, said the start of the trial “delivers renewed hope to Rohingya that our decades-long suffering may finally end.”
“Amid ongoing violations against the Rohingya, the world must stand firm in the pursuit of justice and a path toward ending impunity in Myanmar and restoring our rights.”
Wai Wai Nu
Also, Nicholas Koumjian, Head of the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, told a news agency that the case is likely to “set critical precedents for how genocide is defined and how it can be proven, and how violations can be remedied.”
Additionally, Legal Action Worldwide (LAW), a group that advocates for Rohingya rights, noted, “If the ICJ finds Myanmar responsible under the Genocide Convention, it would mark a historic step in holding a state legally accountable for genocide.”
Myanmar’s military leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, is facing a separate arrest warrant before the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his role in the persecution of the Rohingya.
The ICC prosecution said that the General “bears criminal responsibility for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh.”
Myanmar is currently holding phased elections that have been criticised by the UN, some Western countries and human rights groups as not free or fair.
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