In recent weeks, the hearings at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague have drawn global attention-not merely for the procedural arguments presented, but for what they reveal about the evolving nature of international justice. At the center of the proceedings is Myanmar, accused of committing genocide against the Rohingya population. Yet, the legal strategies deployed by Myanmar’s military rulers illuminate a deeper, more insidious challenge: the deliberate erasure of victims from the courtroom itself, raising questions about whether international law can effectively confront crimes designed to erase identity and existence.

At first glance, the arguments presented by Myanmar’s legal team appeared technical, almost mundane. Lawyers concentrated on issues of jurisdiction, the admissibility of evidence, procedural timelines, and the authority of various representatives to speak on behalf of the state. These debates, while relevant to any complex international case, masked a remarkable absence: the Rohingya, the very people whose lives and communities were targeted in what the world recognizes as a systematic campaign of destruction, were seldom mentioned. Their history, their suffering, and their ongoing displacement were treated as tangential, as if the case existed in a vacuum rather than as a response to crimes committed against them.

This omission is not accidental. It reflects a deliberate legal strategy that mirrors the very crimes being adjudicated. Genocide, as defined under international law, involves more than mass killings. It is the systematic destruction of a people, encompassing the annihilation of cultural, social, and political identity. In Myanmar, decades of institutionalized discrimination had already rendered the Rohingya invisible in the eyes of the state well before the military’s 2016-2017 operations. Citizenship was denied, movement restricted, education limited, and public discourse framed to delegitimize Rohingya identity. By........

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