U.N. Member States: Take Urgent Action To End Mass Atrocities In Myanmar

(Bangkok, January 31, 2025)—U.N. member states should take decisive action to end the Myanmar military junta’s ongoing atrocities and ensure accountability for its grave crimes, said Fortify Rights, Amnesty International, and 44 other human rights organizations in a joint statement today. The groups urged U.N. Member States to take immediate steps to hold the junta accountable for mass killings, mass arbitrary detention, and other international crimes, including by referring Myanmar to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and cutting off its access to weapons and revenue.

Marking four years since the junta’s violent coup d’état, the joint statement outlines concrete actions for the U.N. Human Rights Council and member states to confront the ongoing atrocity crimes in Myanmar.

“For the last four brutal years, and for decades prior, the Myanmar junta has enjoyed complete impunity because world leaders have shut their eyes and failed to take meaningful action,” said Chit Seng, Human Rights Associate at Fortify Rights. “It is the people of Myanmar who have borne the brunt of this madness. It is now time for the international community to act: a referral of the entire Myanmar situation to the International Criminal Court is a simple and necessary step in the long road to accountability.”

The joint statement calls on U.N. member states, including regional actors in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and neighboring states, to “increase pressure on the junta by blocking arms shipments, suspending aviation fuel shipments and supporting international justice mechanisms, including by prosecuting or extraditing any suspected perpetrators.”

In addition to Amnesty International and Fortify Rights, signatories include Burma War Crimes Investigation, the Blood Money Campaign, Karen Human Rights Group, Athan, Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK, and others. The organizations urge the U.N. Security Council and Member States of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to “refer the full situation in all of Myanmar to the ICC to ensure justice for all victims.”

Evidence collected by human rights organizations, including Fortify Rights, has exposed the Myanmar military junta’s ongoing international crimes throughout the country, including killings of civilians, air strikes targeting civilians, the denial of humanitarian aid, and other violations that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. Millions of people throughout Myanmar are in desperate need of shelter, food, medicine, and other essential aid due to the junta’s ongoing attacks. In 2022, Fortify Rights and the Schell Center for International Human Rights at Yale Law School published a 193-page report documenting how the Myanmar military junta and police murdered, imprisoned, tortured, disappeared, forcibly displaced, and persecuted civilians in acts that amount to crimes against humanity.

Revolutionary forces have also committed atrocity crimes. For example, on August 5, 2024, the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group fighting the Myanmar junta, massacred Rohingya civilians as they attempted to flee fighting by crossing the Naf River, which separates Myanmar from neighboring Bangladesh. According to a Fortify Rights investigation, AA drones, artillery, and gunfire killed over one hundred Rohingya men, women, and children. The AA publicly denied responsibility for those killings. In another case, on January 23, 2025, Fortify Rights published an analysis of two leaked videos filmed by AA soldiers, in which AA personnel brutally executed two prisoners of war. Within 24 hours of publication, the AA acknowledged its responsibility for the crimes, vowed accountability, and committed to preventing future atrocities.

The 46 organizations called on “all parties to the armed conflict in Myanmar to comply with international humanitarian law and engage with international justice mechanisms.”

In November 2024, the ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan announced that his office is seeking an arrest warrant for Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing “for the crimes against humanity of deportation and persecution of the Rohingya, committed in Myanmar, and in part in Bangladesh.” This is the first time the Prosecutor’s office has sought an arrest warrant for someone from Myanmar.

“If these [ICC] requests are granted, authorities in ICC member states must urgently comply with an arrest warrant for a suspect present within their jurisdiction and hand the person over to the ICC to face their accusers in a fair trial for alleged crimes under international law,” the joint statement said.

Fortify Rights urges ICC member states to use Article 14 of the Rome Statute to refer the crimes committed in Myanmar to the ICC Prosecutor. In August 2021, Myanmar’s democratic National Unity Government (NUG) submitted a declaration to the ICC giving the court jurisdiction under article 12(3) of the court’s statute, also known as the Rome Statute. On February 9, the ICC formally acknowledged receipt of the NUG’s declaration. Article 14 of the Rome Statute gives ICC Member States the right to refer crimes under the court’s jurisdiction directly to the ICC chief prosecutor if there is a reasonable presumption that the court would have jurisdiction, and the NUG’s 12(3) declaration satisfies that requirement.

“Justice cannot wait any longer,” said Chit Seng at Fortify Rights. “U.N. Member States must take concrete steps to deliver justice for all victims of Myanmar military junta, including by using Article 14 to refer the crimes to the ICC prosecutor for investigation and prosecution.”

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