The Rohingya crisis: Accountability for decades of persecution

Several periods since 2012 have seen an escalation in violence against the Rohingya population in Myanmar. This violence reached a climax in late 2017, resulting in hundreds of thousands of additional refugees fleeing Myanmar. To many, this acute crisis appeared out of nowhere; however, the Rohingya have been persecuted for decades. This chapter will examine the victimisation of the Rohingya in Myanmar, outlining the history of the crimes committed against them. It will place this in the context of the debate over the categorisation of the crimes being committed: whether they are genocide, crimes against humanity, or ethnic cleansing. In doing so, the discussion will address the relevance of this categorisation for the victims in an international law context and, now that prevention possibilities have long since passed, what avenues for accountability exist for the Rohingya victims against the Burmese perpetrators of these atrocities.