Whatever the ICJ Rules, the Arakan Army Is Beyond Its Reach

 The armed group’s treatment of the Rohingya amounts to crimes against humanity – but because it is driving them into Bangladesh, the ICC has the power to act.

By Ashley S. Kinseth

November 10, 2026

The Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, the seat of the International Court of Justice. Credit: Depositphotos

On November 19, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) will rule in The Gambia v. Myanmar. The much-anticipated judgment comes nearly a decade after the military’s 2016-17 clearance operations drove more than 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh. Should the court find that those operations amounted to genocide, it will be the first such ruling against any state.

Yet whatever the judgment, it will bind only Myanmar – a state whose government no longer controls the territory in question. What, then, could it realistically mean for the Rohingya? Among The Gambia’s requested remedies is full and equal citizenship for the Rohingya – one of the few that Myanmar could still offer in the now-fractured state, at least in theory. It is also among the least likely to be ordered, as the court has historically proven reluctant to dictate changes to a state’s laws, and its record on genocide redress is thin.

The Gambia has further asked the court to order Myanmar to provide for the Rohingya’s safe return, restore their property, and guarantee their freedom of movement. But each of those orders would be impossible in present-day northern Rakhine, which is now controlled by the Arakan Army (AA), an ethnic Rakhine armed group that wrested power from the junta in 2024 and has since imposed an elaborate system of controls on the Rohingya who remain. For Rohingya still in Rakhine, these new rulers – who have adopted many of the military’s methods, yet lie beyond the judgment’s reach – pose the more immediate threat.

Investigators from the United Nations and Human Rights Watch say that the AA has imposed forced labor quotas, paid permits to visit neighboring villages, and an array of targeted taxes, which a London-based Rohingya advocacy group reports cover everything from homes, shops, and rice paddies to boats, cattle, and fishing nets. The AA has also reportedly seized an estimated 2,000 acres of land from Rohingya, and satellite analysis attributes to the AA roughly 8,500 burned structures across some 50 Rohingya villages in Buthidaung township in 2024. Further satellite imagery confirms the destruction: in the village of Hnget Thay, the rice paddies on which Rohingya livelihoods once depended have been replaced by a grid of 120 gray buildings – an AA detention camp for displaced Rohingya, which no one can enter or leave without the AA’s permission. Non-Rohingya settlers have also been installed in 11 former Rohingya villages, including villages emptied in 2017, with Rohingya laborers forced to build the settlers’ new homes as well as their own camps and AA buildings.

Whether or not this conduct clears the standard for genocide, which turns on proving intent to destroy a group, it already amounts to crimes against humanity. The crimes in question are deportation and persecution – the same crimes as in the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor’s warrant application against Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, now Myanmar’s president. For instance, all residents of AA-held areas need a string of recommendation letters to leave Rakhine State, but only Rohingya must obtain a paid permit just to visit their neighboring village. Meanwhile, deportation need not happen at gunpoint; the AA creates the requisite “coercive environment” when its officials tell Rohingya at village meetings that “any family unable to pay taxes or meet recruitment quotas must leave Rakhine State.”

These conditions have contributed to a continuing outflow of Rohingya refugees, with over 155,000 having crossed into Bangladesh since 2024, many of them driven out by the AA. One villager, Salamat Khan, told The Guardian that after attacking his village, AA fighters delivered the order in person: “Go to Bangladesh,” they said. “Your homes are gone, go to the [refugee] camps.”

Because Bangladesh is an ICC member, the ICC can investigate those deportations now. When it authorized the investigation in November 2019, its judges explicitly declined to limit the investigation to the 2016-17 operations or to the people named in the prosecutor’s request. Rather, their authorization covers any crime, “including any future crime,” committed at least partly in Bangladesh and “sufficiently linked to the situation.”

But with the ICC under U.S. sanctions, no new prosecutor is expected until late 2027, and its Bangladesh/Myanmar investigation nearing completion, bringing the AA into it will take pressure and support from its member states, starting with the 11 that backed The Gambia’s case at the ICJ.

With the ICC’s warrant application against Min Aung Hlaing already pending for nearly two years, some might ask why the ICC should turn its scarce attention to the AA. But including the AA need not dramatically expand the scope of the investigation: to do so would address the same crimes on the same jurisdictional basis, and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which shares evidence on crimes against the Rohingya with the ICC, is already investigating the AA.

The AA casts its conduct as a matter of war and security, arguing that “Rakhine State is witnessing war and emergency measures are necessary.” It insists it has “strictly adhered to the international laws of war,” and says it arrested Rohingya who worked with the junta to “ensure regional security.” It is true that the junta conscripted thousands of Rohingya to fight the AA, and that some Rohingya armed groups sided with the military. But whatever role individual Rohingya played in the war, the AA’s controls fall on Rohingya as a group, the vast majority of whom never took up arms. Furthermore, much of the land was seized after the AA took control and fighting there had largely subsided, and arbitrary taxation and permitting schemes have nothing to do with the battlefield.

The ICC confronted a similar defense in September. When it convicted Mahamat Said, a commander in the Seleka rebel coalition that had seized power in the Central African Republic, it acquitted him of war crimes because the fighting had ended – but convicted him of crimes against humanity committed in the territory the Seleka then controlled.

Still, the AA is the force that broke the junta’s hold on Rakhine, and pressing it may look like helping the military or, at the very least, treating the two as equivalent. In 2017, the military drove more than half a million Rohingya out in a matter of weeks, and the U.N. Fact-Finding Mission has called its estimate of up to 10,000 deaths “conservative.” The AA’s abuses, by comparison, have not approached that scale. If anything, its methods more closely echo the controls the military imposed on Rohingya for decades before 2017. Even its burning of Buthidaung’s Rohingya villages destroyed less than a quarter as many structures as the military did across northern Rakhine in 2017, while its best-documented massacre, at Hoyyar Siri, left a casualty toll in the hundreds.

Yet holding both to the same law does not make their crimes equal, and the ICC has applied it to both sides of a war before. In the Central African Republic, it has convicted commanders of both the Seleka rebels and the anti-Balaka militias that fought them of persecution, among other crimes. Nor does any of this require weakening the AA’s fight against the junta. The changes at stake – lifting Rohingya-only taxing and travel permitting schemes, ending forced labor and halting the transfer of Rohingya land – concern only the AA’s treatment of civilians under its rule and would cost it no lawful advantage on the battlefield.

The AA’s eager courting of recognition and aid also presents a rare opportunity for leverage. Its spokesman said in 2022 that it was “still trying to become an internationally recognized government,” and in February its leader, Twan Mrat Naing, wrote to Bangladesh’s new foreign minister proposing “a new course of friendship between Bangladesh and Arakan.” Bangladesh, which is working to facilitate talks between the AA and the junta, has particular sway. States, donors, and U.N. agencies are all well positioned to condition their support on the AA taking measures to materially improve conditions for Rohingya on the ground. This is leverage that outsiders have rarely had over the junta, and largely squandered with Myanmar’s government during its opening after 2011.

But conditioning support is not enough on its own: the states with the most influence, like China and India, deal with the AA on the basis of their own interests. The ICC route, by contrast, does not rely on those politics, and an investigation would raise the cost of dealing with the AA without conditions. The ICC prosecutor’s office should thus act before the investigation closes. Member states will have their own opportunity in early December, when the Assembly of States Parties meets in The Hague to approve a 2027 budget that plans for that closure; the 11 states that intervened in The Gambia’s case should ensure the investigation can extend to the AA instead.

Until the AA lifts its Rohingya-only controls, no one should be promoting returns to AA-held areas, least of all on the strength of the court’s ruling on 2016-17. For many Rohingya who have fled since, the AA has already handed down a verdict of its own: their homes are gone – and as long as that verdict stands, any prospect of “safe return” is illusory.

AUTHORS

GUEST AUTHOR

Ashley S. Kinseth

Ashley S. Kinseth is an international human rights lawyer and researcher working on atrocity crimes, forced displacement, and statelessness in South and Southeast Asia. 

10 Reasons Hakeem Jeffries Should Not Be the Next Speaker of the House by Medea Benjamin

 Now that Democrats have swept the House, a key question is: Who should lead it?

Hakeem Jeffries is in line to become the first Black Speaker of the House, which would be a historic milestone. But members of Congress must examine Jeffries’ record, his priorities, and the kind of leadership he would bring to this moment.

Here are ten reasons why Jeffries should not be Speaker.

1. He has abandoned Medicare for All

At a time when millions of Americans struggle with unaffordable health insurance, medical debt, and the threat of financial ruin from illness, Jeffries has distanced himself from one of the most important progressive reforms: Medicare for All.

Jeffries co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation from 2013 through 2021. But in an August 2026 interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, he said it is no longer legislation he supports or cosponsors. Ironically, he made that statement on the same day a CBS poll found that 90 percent of Democratic voters back the idea.

This reversal puts him at odds with party voters, but also with a majority of Democratic representatives in the House. As of late October, Rep. Pramila Jayapal’s Medicare for All Act had 118 Democratic cosponsors. A “leader” who won’t back what his own caucus and voters want is not a leader.

2. He refuses to break with Israel 

Perhaps nowhere is Jeffries more out of step with the progressive base than on Israel.

For decades, Jeffries has been a staunch defender of the U.S.-Israel alliance. At a pro-Israel rally in 2014, during Israel’s military assault on Gaza, Jeffries proclaimed, “Israel today, Israel tomorrow, Israel forever!.” In 2020 he told an AIPAC conference that New Yorkers consider Jerusalem their “sixth borough,” totally disregarding the plight of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

Even as Israel’s genocide in Gaza sparked worldwide outrage, Jeffries continued to resist calls to end U.S. military support.

In July 2026, 103 House Democrats voted to cut $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel, including the party’s second-ranking House leader, Katherine Clark. But Jeffries joined 97 other Democrats and nearly every Republican in voting to preserve the funding.

In a May 2024 60 Minutes interview, when asked whether Israel’s bombing of Gaza had been indiscriminate, Jeffries said no. By then, nearly 35,000 Palestinians had been killed. When the interviewer pressed him, saying, “You seem reluctant to criticize Israel at all,” Jeffries responded, “I’m dealing with the facts on the ground.”

Jeffries has also refused to cosponsor the Block the Bombs Act, which would restrict transfers of some of the deadliest offensive weapons to Israel, including 2,000-pound bombs, bunker busters, precision-guidance kits, and tank and artillery rounds. As of November 2026, the bill has 82 Democratic cosponsors and the endorsement of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Caucus Chair Greg Casar has pledged to push for a floor vote if Democrats regain the majority. Yet Jeffries has not signed on, and as Speaker, he would have enormous power to determine whether the bill ever receives a vote.

While Jeffries has acknowledged that U.S. policy toward Israel needs to change, he continues to support Israel’s military superiority and joint missile-defense programs. He has also refused to condemn Section 219 of the NDAA, which would further integrate U.S. and Israeli military research, technology, and production.

Ironically, both Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu have recently suggested that the U.S. should stop giving Israel nearly $4 billion a year because “Israel doesn’t need it.” Whether or not we believe them, it is striking that we have yet to hear a similar call from Hakeem Jeffries.

3. He has failed to champion major cuts to the obscene Pentagon budget

At a time when Americans are struggling to afford basic necessities, Trump is demanding a staggering $1.5 trillion military budget—an increase of nearly $600 billion, or 66 percent, over the previous year’s base funding. Yet Jeffries has not made substantially reducing Pentagon spending a central priority of Democratic leadership.

Yes, he has opposed funding for Trump’s war in Iran but he is a staunch advocate of continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine and has sharply criticized Trump for failing to provide sufficient support. He said “America is stronger when Russia is weaker.” In September 2026, he pledged that Democrats would continue backing Ukraine “until victory is won,” signaling his commitment to greater U.S. involvement and military assistance instead of a commitment to a diplomatic solution that would end that terrible war.

Jeffries is also an enthusiastic defender of the aggressive alliance NATO, which should have dissolved when the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991. He has called NATO “the most successful military and diplomatic alliance in the history of the world.” NATO, at Trump’s insistence, has called for all members to dramatically increase their military budgets to 5 percent of their GDP (the US is presently at 3.1 percent).

Jeffries’ ties to the military-industrial complex are particularly troubling. During the 2026 election cycle alone, Jeffries’ campaign reportedly received approximately $212,000 from military PACs.

Democrats cannot simply promise better healthcare, affordable housing, quality education and climate action while supporting a massive military budget. Real change requires shifting resources from weapons and war to the needs of ordinary people. The next Democratic Speaker must be prepared to challenge the military-industrial complex.

4. He continues to accept pro-Israel lobby money

Jeffries’s position on Israel cannot be separated from his longstanding political relationship with the AIPAC lobby.

At a time when AIPAC funding has become toxic and so many Democratic candidates rejected AIPAC money, Jeffries has maintained his ties to the organization.

According to Track AIPAC, Hakeem Jeffries has received more than $1.5 million in campaign contributions from AIPAC and other pro-Israel lobby groups over his congressional career. During the 2026 election cycle alone, his campaign received nearly $300,000 in contributions from pro-Israel PACs.He has also taken five AIPAC-sponsored trips to Israel since arriving in Congress.

Following the November elections, AIPAC publicly celebrated Jeffries as one of the candidates it supported.

How can congressional Democrats be led by someone so closely tied to AIPAC, a lobby increasingly toxic to their own voters?

5. His Backroom Dealings with Jared Kushner Raise Serious Questions About His Judgment

At a time when Americans are demanding investigations into the Trump family’s financial dealings, Hakeem Jeffries chose to sit down privately with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and influential adviser.

In August 2026, reports revealed that Jeffries had met with Kushner to discuss possible cooperation on housing, immigration and affordability. Yet Kushner, who holds no official government position, continues to wield influence over U.S. foreign policy while maintaining lucrative financial relationships with Gulf governments through his investment firm.

House Judiciary Committee Democrat Jamie Raskin has already launched an investigation into Kushner’s foreign financial entanglements, demanding documents and communications about his dealings with foreign governments. So why was Jeffries meeting with him behind closed doors?

With Democrats taking control of the House in January, they need a speaker committed to untangling the dirty web of corruption committed by Trump and his inner circle.

6. He Has Elevated Warhawks to Key Foreign-Policy Positions

You can tell a political leader’s priorities by whom they put in power. And Jeffries’s choices speak volumes.

In August 2026, Democratic leaders elevated Rep. Jared Moskowitz, one of the House’s most outspoken pro-Israel hawks, to the top Democratic position on the powerful House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa. Moskowitz has been an unwavering defender of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, continued U.S. weapons shipments, and Israel’s brutal military operations in Lebanon. He has also openly supported both Israeli attacks on Iran and Trump’s 2025 bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities, and initially opposed congressional efforts to prevent the 2026 war before later backing War Powers restrictions.

With Democrats in control of the House, Moskowitz will be positioned to chair the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, wielding significant influence over congressional oversight and policy toward Israel, Palestine, Iran, and the entire region.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Wesley Bell, two other staunch defenders of Israel, were added to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Bell had defeated progressive Rep. Cori Bush in 2024 after massive spending by AIPAC’s super PAC. Progressives are still steaming over the role of Wasserman Schultz in undermining Bernie Sanders during the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

The backlash to these appointments was immediate. Rep. Ro Khanna warned, “Don’t put Israel hawks out of touch with our voters in charge of our Middle East policy.” The Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the appointments as an insult to voters and an attempt to shield Israel from accountability for its actions in Gaza.

7. Jeffries Represents the Democratic Party’s Dependence on Corporate Money

The Democratic Party claims to fight for working people, but Jeffries remains deeply connected to the wealthy corporate interests that dominate Washington.

His campaign has benefited from millions of dollars in contributions associated with Wall Street, pharmaceutical and insurance companies, real estate interests, Big Tech and military contractors.

These financial relationships raise a fundamental question: How aggressively will Democrats challenge corporate greed, Wall Street speculation, soaring healthcare costs and the military-industrial complex when their leader maintains such close ties to these powerful interests?

Progressive Democrats have demonstrated that grassroots organizing and small-dollar fundraising offer an alternative to corporate PAC money.

The Democratic Party cannot credibly promise to take on corporate power without confronting the influence of big money within its own leadership.

8. He has defended the Democratic establishment against progressive challengers

Jeffries has a long history of protecting entrenched Democratic incumbents against progressive challengers.

In 2020, he backed longtime pro-Israel congressman Eliot Engel against Jamaal Bowman, who defeated Engel in a stunning primary upset. In 2022, Jeffries traveled to Chicago to campaign for veteran Congressman Danny Davis against young progressive organizer Kina Collins, who came within seven percentage points of victory.

And in 2026, Jeffries backed Dan Goldman, Adriano Espaillat and Shri Thanedar against progressive challengers Brad Lander, Darializa Avila Chevalier and Donavan McKinney. All three incumbents lost their primaries, and all three challengers went on to win in November.

This pattern is no coincidence. In 2021, Jeffries joined forces with centrist Democrats Josh Gottheimer and Terri Sewell to establish Team Blue PAC, designed to protect Democratic incumbents against primary challengers.

While voters are demanding a new direction, Jeffries has repeatedly sided with the establishment candidates they rejected.

9. He Wants to Reform ICE, Not Abolish It 

As ICE agents terrorize immigrant communities, separate families and carry out violent raids, the question of how to dismantle Trump’s cruel mass-deportation machinery has become increasingly urgent.

Jeffries has condemned ICE’s brutality and demanded greater accountability. But he has stopped short of calling for the abolition of ICE or the dismantling of the Department of Homeland Security, insisting instead that these agencies can be reformed.

Contrast that with Rep. Delia Ramirez’s groundbreaking Reimagining Safety Act, which would abolish ICE, dismantle DHS and establish a new Department of Community Safety, redirecting resources toward housing, healthcare and community well-being. Her legislation challenges the very definition of national security, arguing that real safety comes from meeting people’s needs, not militarizing their communities.

This is the kind of bold, visionary leadership that offers a fundamental alternative to simply “reforming” an out-of-control immigration enforcement system that is terrorizing immigrant communities.

10. He Has Failed to Champion Bold Climate Action

As devastating wildfires consume entire communities, record-breaking heat waves threaten lives, and floods and droughts wreak havoc across the country, the climate crisis demands bold, urgent leadership—not business as usual.

Yet Jeffries has refused to endorse the Green New Deal or champion demands to halt the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure and eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the oil and gas industry. In 2022, when more than 70 House Democrats publicly opposed legislation to fast-track fossil fuel projects, Jeffries declined to join them.

More recently, he has distanced himself from calls for a moratorium on new AI data centers, even as a powerful grassroots movement is sweeping the country, with communities organizing against these energy-guzzling facilities that drain water supplies, drive up electricity bills, strain power grids and threaten the environment.

Jeffries supported the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean-energy investments, but he has not embraced the more ambitious climate agenda advocated by progressive lawmakers and community groups.

At a time when climate disasters are destroying homes, livelihoods and entire communities, the Democratic Party needs leadership with the urgency and ambition to confront the climate crisis.

A Democratic Majority Deserves Progressive Leadership

More than any single vote, contribution, or appointment, the problem with Hakeem Jeffries is the establishment politics he represents—politics that protect the powerful, accommodate corporate interests, and offer timid reforms when the country is crying out for transformative change.

Voters did not reject Republican extremism just to see Democratic leaders continue pouring billions into wars and corporate interests while families struggle to afford housing, healthcare, and basic necessities.

And the grassroots are making their voices heard. In just a few days, more than one million people have signed a petition demanding new leadership. Congressional offices are being inundated with calls, and several incoming Democrats—including Melat Kiros, Claire Valdez, Chris Rabb, and Adam Hamawy—are withholding support for Jeffries.

The Speaker of the House holds enormous power. That power can be used to confront the military-industrial complex, challenge corporate money and AIPAC, stand up for immigrants, and put human needs ahead of endless wars. Or it can be used to protect the very system that has brought us to this crisis.

That’s why we need a new generation of leadership willing to fight for real change.

Sign the petition demanding new leadership. Call your member of Congress at 202-224-3121.

Medea Benjamin is the co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK and the human right organization Global Exchange. Follow her on twitter at @MedeaBenjamin.