JUNE 2021 The UN’s Response to the Human Rights Crisis after the Coup in Myanmar: Destined to Fail? DAMIAN LILLY Cover Photo: People take to the streets ABOUT THE AUTHOR in Nyaungshwe, Myanmar, to protest the military coup. March 2, 2021. DAMIAN LILLY is an independent consultant based until R. Bociaga/Shutterstock.com recently in Myanmar and is a member of the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP). He has worked for the UN in Disclaimer: The views expressed in this several countries and previously served as Chief of the paper represent those of the author Protection Division in the UN Relief and Works Agency for and not necessarily those of the Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and Senior International Peace Institute. IPI welcomes consideration of a wide Protection of Civilians Advisor in the UN Mission in South range of perspectives in the pursuit of Sudan. a well-informed debate on critical policies and issues in international affairs. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS IPI Publications The author would like to thank all those people that gave Albert Trithart, Editor and their time to be interviewed as part of the research for the Research Fellow report. Particular thanks go to Richard Bennett, Christopher Emma Fox, Editorial Intern Gunness, Charles Petrie, Liam Mahony, Laura Haigh, Jake Sherman, and Albert Trithart, who reviewed and provided Suggested Citation: comments on the first draft of the report. Damian Lilly, “The UN’s Response to the Human Rights Crisis after the Coup in IPI owes a debt of gratitude to its many donors for their Myanmar: Destined to Fail?” International generous support. The publication was funded by the Peace Institute, June 2021. government of the Netherlands. © by International Peace Institute, 2021 All Rights Reserved www.ipinst.org CONTENTS Abbreviations . iii Executive Summary . v Introduction. 1 The Military Junta’s Terror Campaign against Its Own People. 2 Excessive and Lethal Use of Force . 2 Attacks on Health and Education Facilities and Staff . 3 Arbitrary Detention, Enforced Disappearances, and Torture . 4 Violations of the Right to Peaceful Assembly and Freedom of Expression . 4 Attacks against Civilians during Armed Conflicts. 4 Forced Displacement . 5 Other Humanitarian Consequences . 5 The Human Rights Agenda under Threat . 5 The Responsibility to Protect: A Withering Doctrine . 5 From Human Rights Up Front to the Secretary General’s Call to Action . 7 What Is Left in the Human Rights Toolbox? . 8 Political Pressure and Nonrecognition . 8 Punitive Measures: Sanctions Regimes and Arms Embargos. 12 Human Rights Monitoring and Advocacy . 14 Legal Accountability Mechanisms . 16 The Role of the Aid Community . 18 Local Human Rights Actors and Civil Resistance. 20 Conclusion: An Agenda for Protection in Myanmar . 21 ABBREVIATIONS AAPP Assistance Association for Political Prisoners ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations HRuF Human Rights Up Front ICC International Criminal Court ICJ International Court of Justice ICRC International Committee of the Red Cross IIMM Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar NLD National League for Democracy NUG National Unity Government OHCHR Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights RC/HC Resident coordinator/humanitarian coordinator R2P Responsibility to protect UNHCR UN Refugee Agency Executive Summary Since seizing power in a coup on February 1, 2021, there is no simple recipe for halting the atrocity Myanmar’s military has launched a violent crack - crimes, the UN could take a combination of down against anti-coup protesters—a campaign of measures at several levels: terror that may amount to crimes against humanity. With violence spreading, there are fears • Ground the response in a political strategy: that the country is slipping toward full-scale civil The UN urgently needs to develop a political war and state collapse. The international strategy to address the crisis in support of the community has appeared almost powerless to ASEAN process, including by revamping the respond to this human rights crisis, reflecting a office of the special envoy on Myanmar and broader weakening of its resolve to prevent and creating an international support group while respond to atrocity crimes over the last decade. ensuring that human rights are at the center of any political process. There is a sense of history repeating itself in • Increase capacity for human rights Myanmar as the military junta acts with impunity monitoring and quiet diplomacy: An while the international community rolls out the ASEAN-UN civilian protection monitoring familiar playbook, to limited effect. Some states mechanism should be explored as an option to have refused to recognize the military junta and help put an end to the violence by all parties, imposed bilateral sanctions, but others have even if political support will be hard to achieve. continued engaging with it and failed to take The UN also urgently needs to increase its punitive measures. The lack of international unity capacity to monitor human rights, even if done has prevented robust action by the Security remotely, including through digital platforms. Council, which has not taken even minimal • Provide clear leadership that encourages a measures like an arms embargo. A five-point less risk-averse approach: The UN secretary- consensus plan agreed by the Association of general should visit the region to meet with all Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has not been key actors and strengthen the UN’s partnership implemented but is the only realistic solution to the with ASEAN and other concerned states. crisis. • Devise a whole-of-system approach to the UN’s response: The UN should introduce While the UN has publicly condemned the military mandatory procedures for relevant UN entities junta, this has not been accompanied by private to mobilize their resources and capabilities in diplomacy. The UN’s capacity to monitor, response to human rights crises and deploy a document, report, and analyze human rights senior planner to coordinate its political, violations has not matched the scale of the human rights, humanitarian, and development problem. There are few international justice actions. mechanisms for holding members of the military • Scale up protection services: Humanitarian accountable for atrocity crimes, though pursuing partners should urgently update their humani- these could yield success in the long run. The tarian appeal and activate the protection international development and humanitarian cluster in urban areas of Myanmar to coordi- actors present in the country have taken only nate the scaling up of protection services such minimal actions to address the human rights crisis. as psychosocial support, legal aid, and case In view of the inadequate international response, management. national human rights organizations, protesters, • Support existing nationally or locally led and the civil disobedience movement have been left protection efforts: The greatest forces for to fill the gap with little international support. change have come from the protesters, people Compared to the scale and severity of human right involved in the civil disobedience movement, violations occurring in Myanmar, the UN’s and human rights and civil society organiza- response—both as an intergovernmental body of tions. The UN should be more forthright in member states and as a system of operational supporting these efforts and the crucial protec- entities—has been woefully inadequate. While tion role they are playing. The UN’s Response to the Human Rights Crisis after the Coup in Myanmar: Destined to Fail? 1 Introduction the NUG. There are widespread fears that the country is slipping toward full-scale civil war and On February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s military, the state collapse. There are also chilling parallels with Tatmadaw, staged a coup to depose the govern- what has occurred in other countries, such as Syria ment of the National League for Democracy and Libya, where what started as peaceful protests (NLD), which had overwhelmingly won national transformed into years of armed conflict. elections in November 2020. The Tatmadaw The international community has appeared almost claimed there had been electoral fraud and declared powerless in the face of the events unfolding since a year-long state of emergency, placing the coup in Myanmar. The familiar playbook of commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing at the head measures such as public statements, withdrawal of of a newly created State Administrative Council. support, and sanctions has been rolled out, but with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, President Win limited impact thus far. With the scale of violations Myint, and other NLD leaders were arrested and reaching the level of crimes against humanity, there later charged with a series of offenses on dubious have been calls for the invocation of the responsi- grounds. The remaining NLD parliamentarians bility to protect (R2P), although the Security went into hiding and formally created the Council has not taken any action. The Association Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has released a which, along with representatives of some of the five-point consensus plan to seek a resolution to the ethnic groups in Myanmar, established a National crisis, but its track record on Myanmar is not Unity Government (NUG) on April 16, 2021, encouraging. There is a sense which is now acting as a of history repeating itself, with parallel civilian government. The international community has the response, or