Fortify Rights, a human rights group, and 16 individual complainants from Myanmar filed a criminal complaint with the Federal Public Prosecutor General of Germany under the principle of universal jurisdiction against senior Myanmar military generals and others for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
The 215-page complaint and more than 1,000 pages of annexes provide evidence to assist the Office of the Federal Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute those responsible for the Rohingya genocide as well as atrocity crimes related to the military junta’s coup d’état launched on February 1, 2021.
February 1, 2023, marks the second anniversary of the deadly coup and crackdown in Myanmar, and August 2022 marked five years since the Myanmar military’s most egregious attacks on the Rohingya people.
“However, the individuals responsible for crimes related to both have yet to be held accountable,” press statement from Fortify Rights said.
Universal jurisdiction is a legal principle enabling a state to prosecute individuals responsible for mass atrocity crimes—genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—regardless of where the crimes occurred or the nationality of the perpetrator or victims.
Universal jurisdiction is typically reserved for “international crimes,” which are so severe that they represent offences against the entire international community.
The complainants include six women and ten men who represent several ethnicities in Myanmar, including Arakanese (Rakhine), Burman, Chin, Karen, Karenni, Mon, and Rohingya.
All the complainants survived or witnessed crimes in Myanmar, and many have since fled the country. At the time of writing, the complainants are located in several countries, including Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Germany, and the U.S.
The complaint alleges that the Myanmar military systematically killed, raped, tortured, imprisoned, disappeared, persecuted, and committed other acts that amount to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in violation of the German Code of Crimes Against International Law.
The complaint includes substantial evidence showing that senior military junta officials exercised superior responsibility over subordinates who committed crimes, knew about their subordinates’ crimes, and failed to take any action to prevent the crimes from happening and to punish the perpetrators.
The complaint is on file with the German authorities and is not publicly available.
In 2019, the Republic of The Gambia brought a case against Myanmar at the ICJ in The Hague, alleging Myanmar is responsible for genocide against the Rohingya people. While it is a critically important case, the ICJ proceeding concerns only State responsibility for Myanmar’s violation of its obligations under the Genocide Convention. The ICJ does not hold individuals criminally accountable, and no individuals will face repercussions through that court for crimes uncovered in that proceeding.
