UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur – Courage amid Crisis, 2024 July
This paper seeks to shed light on the gendered impacts of the coup and the Myanmar military junta’s gross human rights violations. While women and LGBT people have suffered enormously, they are playing a critical role as human rights defenders and leaders in the resistance movement.
The Special Rapporteur urges the international community to significantly increase support for women, girls, and LGBT people in Myanmar and calls on opposition leaders to provide greater opportunities to serve in leadership positions.
UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur – Banking on the Death Trade, 2024 June
This paper examines the State Administrative Council (SAC)’s procurement of weapons and related materials, and the role that international banks play in this deadly trade. In the past year, exports from Singapore dropped dramatically, while Thailand became the SAC’s leading source of military supplies purchased through the international banking system.
The Special Rapporteur urges the Government of Thailand to follow the example of the Government of Singapore, which in 2023 launched an investigation into weapons transfers from Singapore-based entities. A dramatic drop in these transfers followed.
UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur – The Billion Dollar Death Trade, 2023
This is the most detailed study on post-coup arms transfers to the military to date. It identifies the major networks and companies involved in these transactions, known values of the transfers, and jurisdictions in which the networks operate, namely Russia, China, Singapore, Thailand, and India.
The Government of Singapore has stated that its policy is to prohibit the transfer of arms to Myanmar. “I implore leaders of Singapore to seize the information within this report and enforce its policies to the maximum extent possible,” the Special Rapporteur said.
UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur – Illegal and Illegitimate, 2023
The paper addresses the claims of the State Administrative Council (SAC) to be a legitimate government, by both examining its claim that its coup was legal under a constitution that it drafted and put into place in 2008, and by applying international standards.
The conclusion of this analysis is clear – the SAC’s military coup was illegal and its claim as Myanmar’s government is illegitimate.
UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur – Losing a Generation, 2022 June
Myanmar’s junta is at war with the people of Myanmar, and children are the war’s innocent victims. Without a prompt return to the path of democracy and concerted remedial action, Myanmar’s children will become a lost generation.
The suffering of children is further reason why the international community must rethink and reset its response to the worsening crisis in Myanmar. The world must commit to doing everything reasonably possible to ensure that Myanmar’s children are able to enjoy fundamental human rights, starting with the right to life.
UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur – Enabling Atrocities, 2022 February
This paper by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Myanmar, Tom Andrews, identifies States, including two permanent members of the Security Council, who have supplied weapons used against civilians since Myanmar’s military coup.
He calls on weapons exporting nations to immediately suspend their weapons sales and for an emergency Security Council session to debate and vote on a resolution to, at minimum, ban those arms transfers that the Myanmar military are known to use to attack and kill Myanmar civilians.