Universal Jurisdiction in Argentina: the Rohingya case
On June 28, 2024, Argentine prosecutor Guillermo Marijuán requested the federal criminal court in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to order international arrest warrants for 25 Myanmar government officials for the crime of genocide and crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya community between 2012 and 2018. This is the first time arrest warrants have been sought against Myanmar military officials for the crime of genocide, the historic persecution and violence suffered by the Rohingya community, which culminated in the horrific “cleansing operations” of 2017 and the death of at least 10,000 people and the mass exodus of more than 700,000 Rohingya, half of them children.
The requests for arrest warrants include the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Min Aung Hlaing, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Defense Services, Soe Win, and the former commander of the Western Command, Maung Maung Soe.
The Prosecutor’s request under Article 294 of the Argentine Criminal Procedure Code to seek statements from the identified perpetrators and issue international arrest warrants is the result of an investigation under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which was initiated following a complaint filed by the Burmese Rohingya Organization of the United Kingdom (BROUK) in November 2019.
It is recalled that Argentine law enshrines the principle of “pure” universal jurisdiction, included in Article 118 of the Constitution, which allows for trials for crimes under public international law committed outside Argentina. In addition, Article 5 of Law 26, 200/06 expressly grants federal courts criminal jurisdiction over the crimes mentioned in the Rome Statute of the ICC, among others.