International Justice and Ubuntu
“The Gambia V. Myanmar” Case at The International Court of Justice
Abstract
From the analysis of the reasons in the The Gambia v. Myanmar case, which discusses in the International Court of Justice the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, in the face of the genocidal acts against the Burmese Rohingya, attributable to the government of Myanmar, this paper supports the hypothesis that there would be a certain influence of the Ubuntu philosophy in Gambia’s decision to refer the case to international justice. The values inherent in Ubuntu, such as the need to promote justice, peace and interdependence among human beings universally, would be able to explain, at least in part, both Gambia’s transcontinental empathy for the Rohingya people and the reasons why the country mobilized resources to bring the debate about the genocide of that people to the jurisdiction of the ICJ, even though the case did not directly affect their sovereign interests.
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