LONDON — Yasmin Ullah, a member of Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority, is determined to see justice. On April 13, she filed with the Indonesian attorney general’s office a complaint alleging genocide against Myanmar’s President Min Aung Hlaing. Min Aung Hlaing led the Feb. 1, 2021 coup that ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government and was named president in April following a sham election held amid intense repression, rubber-stamping the army’s continuing grip on power. However secure he appears in his position, Ullah’s legal action offers hope that his impunity may not be guaranteed.
The complaint accuses Min Aung Hlaing of genocide against the Rohingya, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group denied citizenship despite being long established in Myanmar. He’s also accused of being responsible for the burning of Rohingya villages, forced evictions, killings and mass rape in a 2017 military operation, during which around 24,000 Rohingya were killed, and over 700,000 others were forced to flee. The United Nations’ fact-finding mission and its Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar have extensively documented atrocities. Civil society has played a key role in gathering testimonies from survivors and preserving evidence.
The case was made possible by changes to Indonesia’s criminal code that came into effect in January. While civil society has raised concerns about revisions to other parts of the code that restrict Indonesians’ ability to speak out and protest, this particular change stands out as a positive development, enabling people to bring charges against alleged perpetrators of atrocities in other countries under the principle of universal jurisdiction.
Universal jurisdiction applies to crimes under international law, such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, on the grounds that these crimes are an offense against humanity as a whole and as such aren’t bound by borders.
Some states, including France and Germany, have passed laws to enable universal jurisdiction prosecutions. Many powerful states, however, still refuse to recognize the principle, citing national sovereignty, the long-established doctrine of immunity for heads of state, and the potential for prosecutions to be politically motivated.
Yet, the question of whether government leaders should be immune from prosecution has increasingly been contested. Immunity wasn’t granted when leaders of Sierra Leone and the former Yugoslavia were prosecuted for crimes committed during civil wars, and the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC), removed the principle of immunity where it has jurisdiction.
Ironically, United States President Donald Trump’s administration, which resists international accountability over its officials, may have contributed to further eroding the doctrine of immunity by abducting Venezuela’s former leader Nicolás Maduro and placing him on trial for drug trafficking.
Universal jurisdiction cases have increased since the end of the Cold War. Belgium, Finland and Germany convicted people for their role in the Rwanda genocide. Switzerland secured the first guilty verdict for crimes committed in the Liberian civil war, while France convicted another Liberian war criminal in 2022. Germany convicted a Bosnian paramilitary soldier of genocide and, in 2021 and 2022, found two Syrian officials guilty of atrocity crimes.
Hopes for justice
The Rohingya have no hope of justice in a country that refuses even to recognize them as citizens, so diaspora civil society organizations are seeking it wherever they find opportunities. In 2025, an Argentinian court issued arrest warrants against Min Aung Hlaing and other senior Myanmar officials on crimes against humanity and genocide charges, in a case brought by a Rohingya organization. Earlier this year, a human rights organization filed a criminal case against the Myanmar regime. When authorities appointed a senior prosecutor to examine the case, Myanmar retaliated by expelling Timor-Leste’s ambassador.
These efforts complement proceedings in international courts. In 2024, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing for crimes against humanity, while in January, hearings began at the International Court of Justice in a case brought by the Gambian government accusing Myanmar of breaching the Genocide Convention. It isn’t a question of choosing between national jurisdictions and international courts, but rather of taking every avenue available to demand justice.
Universal jurisdiction has its limits. Those accused tend to be safe when they hold power; when states have successfully prosecuted perpetrators, it’s after they’ve lost the power that enabled their crimes. Currently, this means attempts to hold Israel’s leaders accountable for the genocide in Gaza, such as arrest warrants a Turkish court issued against 37 officials, only have symbolic value. Cases motivated by political point-scoring also risk discrediting the principle, as when a body created by Malaysia’s former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad found an array of US officials guilty in absentia, without legal basis or consequence.
Actions under universal jurisdiction, when targeted at evident offenders, can nonetheless help build moral pressure and signal that justice may eventually come. At a time when the brutal and illegitimate Myanmar regime is buttressed by China, India and Russia, and with the US easing its pressure in pursuit of economic benefits, it matters that other countries keep holding the line, isolating the junta, and exposing its atrocities.
It matters all the more when pressure comes from Southeast Asian countries, depriving the Myanmar regime of the excuse that human rights accountability is a Western imposition. Two members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Indonesia and Timor-Leste, have now taken action against a fellow member. But other attempts in the region have faltered. Philippine authorities declined to proceed when five survivors of atrocities filed a case in 2023, while an investigation civil society filed with Indonesia’s national human rights commission that same year, alleging that Indonesian companies were supplying military equipment to Myanmar, has so far seen no progress.
As 2026 president of the UN Human Rights Council, Indonesia is uniquely placed to take the lead in the pursuit of justice for atrocity crimes. Indonesian authorities must treat this case as a priority and give it the attention and resources it needs. IPS
Andrew Firmin is the Civicus editor-in-chief, co-director and writer for Civicus Lens, and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
