Top UN court to rule Nov 19 on Myanmar/Rohingya genocide case

The top United Nations court will on November 19 deliver a landmark ruling on whether Myanmar's crackdown against its mostly Muslim Rohingya minority constituted a genocide, officials said on Tuesday.

Judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have for seven years been weighing accusations by The Gambia that Myanmar's brutal repression of the Rohingya breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.

While the ICJ has no means of enforcing its decisions, a ruling that Myanmar committed genocide would heap more international pressure on its military junta and be seen as justice for hundreds of thousands of Rohingya.

Legal experts are closely watching the ruling from the ICJ, which rules in disputes between countries, for clues as to how the court might sway in the seminal genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel over its campaign in Gaza.

Myanmar has always denied carrying out a genocide against the Rohingya, arguing its actions targeted a military uprising from insurgents after a series of attacks left a dozen security personnel dead.

The crackdown by the Myanmar army and Buddhist militias forced hundreds of thousands of Rohingya to flee to neighbouring Bangladesh, bringing with them harrowing accounts of gang rape and mass executions.

More than one million Rohingya still live across the border in Bangladesh, in the world's largest refugee settlement.