The International Court of Justice will deliver its judgment in The Gambia v. Myanmar soon, its first ruling on the merits of a genocide case in more than a decade. Six NATO States have urged the Court to adopt a “holistic” approach that would lower the threshold for proving genocidal intent. In this updated memorandum, thinc. explains why that approach departs from the Convention and the Court’s own case law, and why its consequences would reach far beyond Myanmar. Our answer is the laws of war: in armed conflict, genocidal intent can only be inferred from conduct first assessed under the rules of international humanitarian law that govern it. We call on the intervening States to withdraw their intervention before the judgment.
