By Ronnie,
Founder & Editor, Rohingya Khobor
Last month marked eight years since Myanmar’s generals drove more than 700,000 Rohingya from their homes in what the UN has called genocide. Today, more than 1.3 million Rohingya live in Cox’s Bazar refugee camps, still waiting for justice that feels both meaningful and achievable. On 30 September, the UN will convene its first High-Level Conference on the Situation of Rohingya Muslims and Other Minorities in Myanmar, a moment that demands not just condemnation, but immediate and concrete transitional justice pathways that can begin today.
What the Rohingya need is not another promise of distant tribunals, but a comprehensive transitional justice framework that bridges courtroom timelines with camp-life realities. I call this approach HEART-TJ—a five-part roadmap that builds on existing initiatives while delivering tangible progress now.
H — Harm recognition and typology
Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and Rohingya-led NGOs have systematically documented abuses ranging from mass killings to the slow violence of statelessness. Researchers are increasingly using intersectional analysis to show how gender, ethnicity, and displacement intensify harm.
Next 12 months: Train 300 community documentarians across camps to create a standardised “Rohingya Harm Atlas”—a taxonomy linking violations to culturally appropriate remedies, feeding directly into reparations design.
E — Evidence and memory
The Sites of Conscience Coalition and Bangladesh’s Liberation War Museum have already equipped the Rohingya with documentation skills. The innovative Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre preserves heritage and testimonies, while digital archives safeguard cultural materials. Meanwhile, the UN’s Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) continues to gather evidence for courts worldwide.
Next 12 months: Establish five regional Evidence and Memory Hubs across camp clusters, each with secure servers, translation teams, and direct links to the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and universal jurisdiction cases—ensuring survivor testimony reaches every relevant venue.
A — Accountability routing
Legal Action Worldwide promotes Rohingya participation in legal processes. Ongoing routes include the ICJ genocide case, ICC investigations, and universal jurisdiction filings such as Argentina’s arrest-warrant requests. In the United States, the Burma GAP Act strengthens accountability tools.
Next 12 months: Launch a Rohingya Legal Coordination Centre to map cases, train paralegals on jurisdiction-specific evidence needs, and maintain a real-time accountability dashboard—because justice is a network, not a single courtroom.
R — Rights and status restoration
The 2025–26 Joint Response Plan outlines urgent humanitarian needs, but durable justice means restoring citizenship rights and legal status. Statelessness bars refugees from education, health, and livelihoods. Existing legal aid programs show that rights work can begin in exile.
Next 12 months: Pilot a “Dignity First” program in three camps, including digital ID cards linked to schooling records, micro-credentials for skills training, and legal clinics offering counselling on pathways to durable solutions. Documentation becomes justice, not just bureaucracy.
T — Trust-building measures
Community reconciliation efforts and cultural projects—like those at the RCMC—preserve identity and heal trauma. Storytelling initiatives such as WITNESS demonstrate how testimony itself can be restorative.
Next 12 months: Create a Rohingya Transitional Justice Fund—transparent, survivor-governed, and ready to disburse small grants for trauma counselling, cultural events, and memorial projects. Trust cannot wait for trials.
What transitional justice looks like in practice
This framework doesn’t force a choice between accountability and livelihoods. Instead:
- A documentation hub doubles as a skills training centre.
- A legal clinic becomes a pathway service.
- A cultural memory project strengthens reparations claims.
The upcoming UN conference is a pivotal chance for the international community to endorse this approach. Rather than another round of condemnations and funding gaps, governments and donors can support a model that begins in the camps and ultimately scales to Rakhine state.
HEART-TJ recognises that justice cannot wait for perfect politics in Myanmar. It builds the infrastructure of accountability, memory, and repair now—so that when rulings arrive, there is already a pipeline of evidence, a protected community, and programs ready to deliver truth and dignity.
Eight years is already too long to wait. The crucial question is not whether the world possesses the resources to act, but whether it can genuinely afford to postpone action any longer.
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