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Introduction
1. The Prosecution seeks a ruling on a question of jurisdiction: whether the Court may
exercise jurisdiction over the alleged deportation of the Rohingya people from Myanmar to
Bangladesh.
2. Consistent and credible public reports reviewed by the Prosecution indicate that since
August 2017 more than 670,000 Rohingya, lawfully present in Myanmar, have been
intentionally deported across the international border into Bangladesh. The UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights has described the Rohingya crisis as “a textbook example of
ethnic cleansing”,1
and according to the UN Special Envoy for human rights in Myanmar, it
potentially bears the “hallmarks of a genocide”.2
The coercive acts relevant to the
deportations occurred on the territory of a State which is not a party to the Rome Statute
(Myanmar). However, the Prosecution considers that the Court may nonetheless exercise
jurisdiction under article 12(2)(a) of the Statute because an essential legal element of the
crime—crossing an international border—occurred on the territory of a State which is a party
to the Rome Statute (Bangladesh).3
3. Given these exceptional circumstances and the nature of this legal issue, the Prosecutor
has exercised her independent discretion under articles 19(3) and 42 to seek a ruling on the
question from the Pre-Trial Chamber. This will assist in her further deliberations concerning
any preliminary examination she may independently undertake, including in the event an ICC
State Party decides to refer the matter to the Court under articles 13(a) and 14
