Why the UN should recognise Myanmar’s National Unity Government, not the junta

The junta has inflicted what the UN rapporteur has called a ‘brute force reign of terror’. More than a thousand people have been killed, six thousand detained and 230,000 displaced

Voting for the NUG would send a powerful signal that the UN stands for human rights and the will of the people

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Demonstrators protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: Reuters

Richard J. Goldstone and other legal scholars

Published: 6:55am, 13 Sep 2021Updated: 3:05pm, 16 Sep 2021

The UN General Assembly is due to consider an issue in the coming weeks that will profoundly affect the lives of 55 million people in Myanmar.

Its Credentials Committee will debate whether to accept the credentials of the junta that seized power on February 1, or those of the National Unity Government (NUG), made up of elected representatives whose parties won a landslide victory in elections last November.

We, the undersigned legal scholars, recommend that the junta’s credentials be rejected.

The junta has inflicted on its own people what the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has called “a brute force reign of terror”, likely amounting to crimes against humanity.

Over one thousand people have been killed and over six thousand have been arbitrarily detained, including elected parliamentarians, with many tortured to death in detention.

Armed conflict has intensified, displacing 230,000 people. The country is now experiencing a major humanitarian crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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