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The UK is facing accusations of double standards after formally submitting detailed legal arguments to the international court of justice in The Hague six weeks ago to support claims that Myanmar committed genocide against the Rohingya ethnic group through its mass mistreatment of children and systematically depriving people of their homes and food.
The UK made its 21-page “declaration of intervention” jointly with five other countries, but it is not supporting South Africa as it prepares to try to convince the ICJ on Thursday that Israel is at risk of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
The UK submission on Myanmar argues there is a lower threshold for determining genocide if the damage has been inflicted on children as opposed to adults. The submission said other actions that could be defined as genocidal, if systematic, include forced displacement from homes, deprivation of medical services and the imposition of subsistence diets.
It argues that given declarations of intent to commit genocide are rare, the court’s test should not solely be explicit statements or numbers killed, but reasonable inference drawn from a pattern of conduct and factual evidence.
Israel will defend itself at the UN-derived ICJ insisting it has been seeking to protect its civilian population in an attempt to destroy Hamas but not the Palestinian people. It says its postwar plans for Gaza involving Palestinian-led governance is proof of a lack of genocidal intent.
Read the rest of Patrick Wintour’s report here:
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