SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

APLN member Elina Noor wrote for the South China Morning Post and emphasised that if Malaysia is serious about its credibility on the international legal stage and its commitment to the principles of justice, its leaders should seize the external momentum to initiate the country’s return to the Rome Statute.

Malaysia’s commitment to the ICC, which dated back to 1998 when the initial diplomatic agreement to establish the court was signed, was ultimately doomed by contentious internal politics. The government had underestimated public resistance on the matter, and misinformation on the court’s reach and jurisdiction inevitably entangled the “three Rs” of Malaysia’s domestic sensitivities – race, religion and royalty.

Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad, who was in office at the time, voiced exasperation at forces seeking to sow “confusion in the minds of the people that this law negates the rights of the Malays and rulers. It is absolute nonsense.”

It is time for Malaysia to revisit signing and ratifying the Rome Statute, particularly in light of the government’s renewed activism on Palestine through international legal frameworks. The country was quick to offer political support for South Africa’s 2023 proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the basis of the Genocide Convention. Putrajaya invoked Malaysia’s own ratification of the treaty and called on “Israel to fulfil its obligations under international law and to immediately end its atrocities against Palestinians”.

When the ICJ issued its order of provisional measures in January 2024 for Israel to desist contravening its obligations under the Genocide Convention, the Malaysian foreign ministry released a statement backing the international legal directive the next day.

When Malaysia joined several other states on the question of Palestine under the banner of The Hague Group, their inaugural statement in January this year was replete with references to international law, the ICJ, the ICC and UN resolutions, as well as the principles of justice.

Read the full article here.

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