Category World News

The top UN court announced that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will hold hearings in a significant case that Myanmar is accused of carrying out a genocide against its Rohingya community next month.

Given that this will be the first genocide case the ICJ has heard on its merits in more than a decade, precedents are anticipated to be established that could affect South Africa’s legal case against Israel over the conflict in Gaza.

The Gambia, a predominantly Muslim West African nation that brought the case before the ICJ, will present its arguments in the opening week of hearings on January 12 through January 15.

The Gambia, which is supported by the Organization for Islamic Cooperation, filed the case with the ICJ in 2019 and charged Myanmar with murdering the predominantly Muslim Rohingya ethnic group.

Myanmar, which has denied genocide, can then bring its case before the court on January 16 through January 20.

The ICJ has also given witnesses three days to hear their arguments in an unusual move. The media and the public are not allowed to attend these hearings.

The parties’ hearings will focus on the case’s merits, according to a statement from the ICJ.

The Gambia’s lawsuit was submitted to the UN’s top court in 2019 and accuses Myanmar’s authorities of violating the UN’s genocide convention during a brutal crackdown on the Rohingya by the army and Buddhist militias in 2017.

Witnesses reported murders, rape, and the burning of entire villages, with over 742, 000 Rohingya escaping the bloodshed.

In response, the ICJ, which decides disputes between nations, issued an order for Myanmar to “take all measures within its power” in 2020 to stop a genocide.

The Gambia’s minister of justice Dawda Jallow stated at a special high-level UN General Assembly (UNGA) meeting on the situation of the Rohingya in September this year that he anticipated a ruling from the court “soon after” the public hearings in January.

“We almost six years ago filed our case,” the statement read. We are now getting ready for the oral argument on the merits of this case, which the court has scheduled for mid-January 2026,” Jallow said.

The Gambia will make a case for Myanmar’s role in the Rohingya genocide, adding that it must compensate its victims.

The Women’s Peace Network-Myanmar executive director Wai Wai Nu stated to Al Jazeera in September that the number of nations that have “in actuality very powerful” have intervened in support of The Gambia’s case at the ICJ.

According to Wai Wai Nu, “they could come together and put an end to the ongoing atrocities against the Rohingya in Rakhine State,” adding that the UN Security Council could also intervene without the ICJ’s intervention.

Prior to 2017, only about one million Rohingya people lived in Myanmar, or 55 million people, and their entire communities fled into Bangladesh as the military campaign against ethnic cleansing grew.

More than one million Rohingya reside in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh’s largest refugee camp, and other countries have been pressing for them to intervene and take on the burden of hosting a sizable number of refugees.

A judge in the United States overturned one of the two men who was found guilty of killing pioneering rap star Jam Master Jay in 2002, citing lack of evidence from the prosecution team.

The rapper, whose legal name was Jason Mizell and who became a producer and founding member of the 1980s hip-hop group Run-DMC, was found guilty on all counts and found guilty of murdering him. Ronald Washington and Karl Jordan Jr., the alleged shooter, were found guilty of killing both of them.

With hits like It’s Tricky and a cover of Aerosmith’s Walk This Way off the best-selling album Raising Hell, Mizell and his Run-DMC bandmates helped pave the way for rap in the 1980s.

Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall denied a similar request for co-defendant Washington on Friday, but granted a surprisingly rare acquittal of Jordan.

In February of this year, Mizell’s godson, Jordan, and Washington, a close friend of the rapper’s friend, were both found guilty of murder on federal charges of drug trafficking.

According to the prosecution, Mizell was shot dead in his New York City recording studio on October 30, 2002, in what was alleged to have been a dispute between Jordan and Washington over a lucrative cocaine distribution deal in Baltimore.

Because witnesses resisted cooperating with investigators out of fear of retribution, the case, according to the prosecution, took many years to solve. After he cut them out of the Baltimore drug deal, they claimed in court that Jordan and Washington planned to murder Mizell, who ran a “middleman.”

Judge DeArcy Hall determined, however, that prosecutors had no reason to believe Jordan had been fired or had a dislike of the drug deal and had no proof he intended to steal anything from Mizell’s supplies.

In a 29-page opinion, the judge wrote that “to draw the conclusions urged by the government would exceed the bounds of reason and require plainly impermissible speculation” on the part of the jury.

The prosecutors’ spokesman said the decision was being reviewed.

Jay Bryant, a third defendant, is currently facing a different trial. Bryant allegedly shot Mizell in the head at close range in the rapper’s studio, according to Jordan.

Following the demise of Run-DMC and as his star status faded, the prosecution alleged that Mizell had started supplementing his income with cocaine.

Jesse, Mizell’s son, stated to the music magazine last year that he hoped the life and accomplishments of his father would serve both as an inspiration and a cautionary tale.

You are still a product of your environment, no matter how much success you see. When you’re stuck in that environment, he said, “there are thought processes that never leave you.”

The death of 37-year-old Mizell followed a string of tragedies in the hip-hop industry, including the 1990s shootings of rapper Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B I G.

Run-DMC and LL Cool J were the pioneers of contemporary hip-hop that incorporated aggressive boasting, sociopolitical commentary, and rock elements.

Run-DMC established a new rap style that incorporated street culture, breaking from the flashy, disco-inflected attire of their predecessors, and were also the first rappers to appear on MTV.