We got here to Geneva for the 63rd Human Rights Council from totally different factors in our advocacy journeys and totally different elements of the world, however with a shared dedication to the individuals of Myanmar. One in all us has spent years strolling the corridors of the United Nations, assembly diplomats, and urgent governments to behave on the disaster in Myanmar. The opposite was attending the Human Rights Council for the primary time, after years of documenting human rights violations within the nation.
We had been there for a similar motive: to ask governments what they’re ready to do about Myanmar. After years of documenting atrocities, we left Geneva with a query that’s turning into more and more troublesome to keep away from: what occurs when the proof is already there?
Contained in the Human Rights Council chamber, the dimensions of the disaster was as soon as once more laid naked.
The United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, described a deepening disaster marked by assaults by the army junta, together with airstrikes, compelled conscription, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, displacement, and the weaponization of humanitarian help. He urged United Nations member states to refer the state of affairs in Myanmar to the Worldwide Felony Courtroom by the Safety Council and halt transfers of arms, ammunition, jet gas, and dual-use objects that danger facilitating violations of worldwide legislation.
The top of the Unbiased Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, Nicholas Koumjian, reported that critical worldwide crimes are being dedicated with better frequency and depth. The mechanism is constant to gather and protect proof for future accountability.
At HRC63, we heard a variety of approaches to the disaster in Myanmar.
Of the 39 governments and entities that took the ground, fewer than half – simply 14 – explicitly raised accountability, justice, impunity, or worldwide accountability mechanisms. Whereas 20 audio system expressed broad help for stronger motion, the remainder of the room fragmented: eight, together with Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, India, and Vietnam, appeared supportive however cautious, favoring regional engagement, dialogue, and a “Myanmar-owned or Myanmar-led” course of.
5 governments – Laos, Belarus, Russia, China, and Venezuela – actively shielded the regime, emphasizing sovereignty, non-interference, and engagement with Myanmar’s authorities, whereas opposing worldwide stress.
After the session, we met with a number of diplomatic missions in Geneva. For us, these conferences created area for conversations about what extra might be performed. What we heard within the Council and in these conferences was not a ignorance. Myanmar is solely not a sufficiently excessive political precedence for a lot of governments to generate sustained motion.
There are actual diplomatic issues. Myanmar’s political illustration stays contested, together with on the United Nations, the place the query of who represents the nation stays unresolved. Governments even have totally different relationships with the army junta, the Nationwide Unity Authorities, ethnic resistance organizations, and the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). However these issues can’t be grounds for indefinite inaction and impunity.
In our view, a Myanmar-led or ASEAN-led course of ought to have a serious position. Humanitarian help is important. However none of those ought to imply placing accountability or the safety of civilians on maintain.
Dialogue with a brutal regime can’t turn out to be an alternative choice to accountability, and sovereignty can’t function a protect towards worldwide scrutiny.
Human rights defenders, inside Myanmar and out of doors, are nonetheless doing their half. We proceed to doc violations, converse with survivors, share proof with the Unbiased Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, and have interaction with the Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights. Different Myanmar and regional organizations are doing the identical.
Fortify Rights has documented the army’s aerial assaults on civilians, together with the chain of command behind assaults in Kachin and Karenni states, and has continued to file new strategies of aerial warfare.
Though extra documentation is required, what’s lacking is a comparable equipment of political motion.
Some governments are already utilizing among the instruments obtainable to them. Canada maintains an arms embargo and aviation-fuel prohibition and has continued imposing focused sanctions on Myanmar army officers and entities. The UK and the European Union have additionally imposed sanctions concentrating on aviation gas suppliers and different entities linked to the army.
On the similar time, accountability efforts are shifting ahead. Myanmar and Rohingya organizations have pursued universal-jurisdiction circumstances in Argentina, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, and Turkiye. In November 2024, the Prosecutor of the Worldwide Felony Courtroom requested an arrest warrant for Min Aung Hlaing, whereas in January 2026, the Worldwide Courtroom of Justice held deserves hearings in The Gambia’s genocide case towards Myanmar.
And but, from the place we sit, there may be nonetheless a hanging hole between the proof being gathered and significant accountability for crimes dedicated for the reason that 2021 coup. No worldwide court docket is presently prosecuting the complete vary of these crimes. Nationwide circumstances and worldwide proceedings provide necessary pathways, however they don’t but quantity to a complete accountability course of.
What stayed with us from the 63rd Human Rights Council was not a lack of expertise or proof. The proof is being collected, and governments ought to proceed to fund human rights documentation. Circumstances are being pursued. Some governments are taking motion. However the items are nonetheless not coming collectively on the scale wanted to match the disaster.
We will proceed to doc, share proof, and have interaction governments. However documentation can solely go to date with out political motion. The individuals of Myanmar have been ready for years, and the proof is there. What occurs subsequent is determined by what governments do with it.