In response to a call for input by the Office of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar (Burma), the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect provided analysis on avenues for accountability the lens of mass atrocity risks, atrocity prevention, and the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P).

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar’s conference room paper on accountability for grave human rights violations. We emphasize the importance of assessing these violations and corresponding accountability recommendations through an atrocity prevention lens and within a framework consistent with obligations under the Responsibility to Protect. Such an approach is essential for accurately analyzing patterns and emerging risks, raising alarm about the scale, systematic nature and targeting of civilians, identifying who is most at risk and why and informing comprehensive, timely recommendations. We also urge the Special Rapporteur to outline a holistic accountability architecture that integrates international, domestic and community-based mechanisms and is rooted in the needs and experiences of victims and survivors across the country.

We further recommend that the Special Rapporteur adopt a broad temporal scope, addressing how earlier patterns of atrocities have become entrenched and continued before the 2021 military coup and 2017 genocide to the present. Such a scope is necessary to fully capture the prevailing impunity and long-standing structural drivers of mass atrocities in Myanmar.

ANALYSIS

Conscience-shocking violations continue across Myanmar with alarming frequency. The military, known as the Tatmadaw, has carried out widespread and systematic attacks on civilians, including airstrikes on villages, displacement camps, schools, markets and medical facilities, causing extensive casualties, mass displacement and large-scale destruction. The junta has relied on extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, forced labor, sexual and gender-based violence and deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid to subjugate Myanmar’s diverse populations and any form of resistance to its rule. These widespread and systematic abuses likely amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Myanmar’s military has a long, well-documented history of abusive practices against ethnic minorities, including the 2013 violence that forced many Rohingya to flee into camps and the genocide against the Rohingya in 2017, as well as crimes against humanity and war crimes across the country’s ethnic areas. A year before the 2017 genocide, the junta conducted so-called “clearance operations,” resulting in widespread violations for which no official was held accountable. This entrenched impunity created the permissive environment that enabled even greater atrocities the following year. Decades of unaddressed abuses and atrocity crimes underscores the urgent need for comprehensive, system-wide accountability measures that extend beyond the government to address the full scope of past and ongoing atrocities.

Despite extensive documentation by UN bodies, civil society and independent investigators, no senior military leaders have been held accountable for their crimes – past or present. Those under investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the forced expulsion of the Rohingya in 2017, including the current junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing, remain in power. Domestic accountability mechanisms lack independence, as the judiciary continues to operate under military control. While opposition actors and ethnic resistance organizations (EROs) have developed alternative governance structures, they require substantial support to implement credible justice processes. In some cases, EROs themselves have committed abuses that may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, further complicating accountability prospects.

Evidence collection by UN mechanisms, including the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM), and international human rights groups continues despite communication blackouts, access restrictions and risks to victims and civil society, but efforts must be strengthened and expanded. Persistent gaps in coordinated international pressure – including the absence of a global arms embargo, comprehensive accountability-oriented sanctions or a formal UN Security Council (UNSC) referral to the ICC – also enable Tatmadaw abuses.

Utilizing an atrocity prevention lens is imperative for an effective international response to ongoing atrocities in Myanmar. Such a lens ensures that accountability efforts contribute to long-term stability, reconciliation and institutional reform rather than reinforcing cycles of violence. Accountability must not be framed solely as retributive or backward-looking, but as an essential pillar of prevention and protection. Credible justice processes deter future mass atrocity crimes, restore victims’ dignity and help rebuild conditions for recovery and sustainable peace. Recognizing accountability as a forward-looking protection measure is therefore critical to breaking Myanmar’s entrenched patterns of mass violence, discrimination and persecution.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Global Centre urges the Special Rapporteur to recommend and press UN member states, regional organizations and the broader multilateral system to advance a layered, survivor-centered accountability strategy that includes:

1. International justice avenues

• • • Continue the use and support of the IIMM and of international courts tasked with examining atrocity crimes, including through a formal UNSC referral of the situation in Myanmar to the ICC.
    • Expand use of universal jurisdiction to prosecute perpetrators until domestic accountability options become credible.

2. Strengthening domestic and community-based justice efforts

• • • Provide technical and financial support to credible judicial initiatives developed by the exiled shadow government, the National Unity Government, EROs and civil society groups.
    • Invest in long-term rule-of-law development, including judicial independence and human rights training for future democratic institutions.
    • Recognize and include survivor-driven, gender-inclusive customary or community-led justice practices where appropriate.

3. Truth-seeking and reparations

• • • Establish a truth-seeking mechanism that documents patterns of human rights abuses and builds a shared historical record.
    • Establish and support a reparations program for affected communities that includes restitution, compensation, rehabilitation and guarantees of non-recurrence, developed in close consultation with victims and survivors.
    • Ensure gender-sensitive and minority-inclusive approaches across all mechanisms, particularly regarding sexual and gender-based violence.

4. Evidence preservation and protection of witnesses

• • • Strengthen evidence collection networks, including those working through remote documentation, community reporting and technological tools.
    • Ensure secure, confidential channels for testimonies from victims, witnesses and diaspora communities.
    • Develop coordinated digital archiving and data-management infrastructure aligned with international standards.

5. Utilizing a survivor-centered approach

• • • Guarantee meaningful participation of affected communities in the design, implementation and evaluation of all accountability processes.
    • Expand psychosocial support, legal assistance and community-led healing initiatives, while ensuring a gender-responsive approach.
    • Integrate non-repetition measures such as security sector reform and mechanisms that restore civilian oversight of armed forces.

The Global Centre stands ready to provide additional analysis or technical support as the Special Rapporteur prepares his report. We appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this crucial effort and reaffirm our commitment to advancing justice, accountability and protection for the people of Myanmar.