The Cost of Belonging to a Minority Group and the Role of Human Rights Law: The Case of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

Abstract

A broad examination of the legal and institutional setups working on the rights of minorities in light of the practice on the ground shows that there is a high level of divergence between what the role of human rights is in protection of minorities and what it ought or assumed to be. We can observe the very minimal role played by IHRL in protecting minority rights at stages of pre-conflict, conflict and post-conflict situations that starts to be more engaging as we go up through these stages, when the situation should be otherwise. In this paper, examination of the role played by IHRL in protection of minority rights at every stage, starting from pre-conflict realization of their rights to post-conflict settlements; repatriation and reconciliation is made by using the Rohingya case as a parameter to measure its sufficiency and effectiveness. The paper discusses the legal and institutional frameworks to the protection of minority rights; it reviews the level of adherence of national laws of Myanmar to the existing international norms; mentions the lack of sufficient recognition of minority rights in international norms and the failure of the state of Myanmar to live up to those existing international norms and finally pints out the need to improve minority rights protection at national and international arena in light of the legal and institutional setup.