ROME STATUTE: BETWEEN THE MISUNDERSTOOD AND THE MISINFORMED

Statement by Azril Mohd Amin, Lawyer & Chief Executive, Centre for Human Rights Research & Advocacy (CENTHRA)
One supposes that the groundless polemics on Malaysia’s International Criminal Court (ICC) accession will continue after this. It is indeed unfortunate that most of those against our accession to the Rome Statute hold misguided propositions and are armed with naught but armchair philosophy proffering mere unintelligible twists. More so when some of their arguments are clearly rooted in imagination than logical reason.
Notwithstanding this sad state of affairs, we at the Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (CENTHRA), ever mindful of our duties as human rights defenders pursuant to the Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, shall continue with our work in persuading the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the ICC to commence their investigation into Israeli’s violation of Resolution 2334 of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). We will not allow misguided sentiment to influence our course of action and remain steadfast in our commitment to uphold international law and human rights norms via the ICC, as one of the few international accountability mechanisms.
Further, we believe the ICC is necessitated to continue our efforts to bring justice to refugees. It is to this end that our team of lawyers interviewed not less than 70 Rohingya Muslims as victims of massacres committed by the Myanmar military junta in 2016 and this led to the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) on Genocide against the Rohingya, Kachin and other ethnic minorities in 2017.
One also recalls that the same team of lawyers had presented expert evidence and an extensive list of witness statements to a panel of distinguished adjudicators, including renowned genocide scholars such as Professor Daniel Feierstein, past President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, Dr. Helen Jarvis, former Public Affairs Officer at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, and Denis J. Halliday, former UN Assistant Secretary-General and winner of Gandhi International Peace Award (2003) in support of case for the Rohingya Muslims at the PPT held in 2017 at the Faculty of Law, Queen Mary University in London and Faculty of Law, University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. The PPT had in turn sparked the momentum for bringing Burmese leaders before the ICC.
We are gratified that the plight of the Rohingya Muslims are slowly but surely being noticed by the international community and remain hopeful that criminal proceedings will eventually be brought against this regime before the ICC.
Our lawyers are also currently assisting the non-profit organisation MyAqsa Foundation to urge the ICC’s Office of Prosecutor (OTP) to launch an investigation against Israel in respect of its war crimes against the Palestinians. This has been done by referring to, among others, Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the jurisdiction of the ICC Prosecutor to initiate investigations. The UNSC passed the legally binding Resolution 2334 upon Israel in 2016, calling upon that pariah regime to cease all acts of violence against Palestinians. With Israeli courts obviously unwilling to prosecute, where else can Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression seek access to justice?
We are committed to the view that Malaysia’s membership of the ICC could have elevated our nation’s status amongst the world community, symbolise the seriousness of our country in increasing unity with the international community, refer any party committing any international crimes to the ICC, speak more loudly against countries that carry out ethnic cleansing and war crimes and nominate our citizens as judges, prosecutors and registrars in the august offices of the ICC.
We end this statement by recalling the apt reminder by United Nations Association Malaysia (UNAM) President Tengku Ahmad Rithauddeen Tengku Ismail on April 6 when he said, “Accession to the Rome Statute will not diminish Malaysia’s sovereignty or affect the highly respected status of our Rulers, including HM the Yang Dipertuan Agong.
To give in to sentiment that accession of the Rome Statute will undermine the sovereignty of our Rulers would suggest that the Malaysian people have allowed the threat of mischief to triumph over the Truth."
It will be the responsible decision of Malaysia as a member of the international community for its government to reconsider the decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute.”
7 April 2019

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