International human rights law is a labyrinth to figure out, not enforceable, & selectively applied. It’s confusing to unravel how the International Criminal Court in the Hague would prosecute ethnic cleansing as distinct from genocide because they do make distinctions even though the human rights crimes involved are identical. Perhaps these juridical distinctions need to be rethought so they cannot be politically manipulated to avoid prosecuting what the elites call ethnic cleansing.

The UN, Human Rights Watch, & other elites are insisting on calling the slaughter of Rohingya an ethnic cleansing, which is at least a step up from calling it communal violence or Saudi-backed terrorism as so much media does. Rohingya activists & their supporters call it a genocide, a far more apt designation. These elite institutions are not going to be the political forces that will build solidarity with the Rohingya & force the military junta & Suu Kyi to stop the genocide but by equivocations they undercut & weaken solidarity & miseducate about what is happening to the Rohingya people.

This is a very strong presentation of the case for calling genocide against the Rohingya what it is. Amal de Chickera, the author, is a human rights activist & co-director of the Institute on Statelessness & Incluson.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/amal-de-chickera/when-is-genocide-genocide