UN welcomes ICJ order; trusts Myanmar will duly comply with it

Welcoming the order of the top UN court, Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said he trusts that Myanmar will duly comply with the court's order.

"In accordance with the Statute of the Court, the Secretary-General will promptly transmit the notice of the provisional measures ordered by the Court to the Security Council," said Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesperson for the UN chief.

Briefing media at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday, Farhan said the UN Secretary General also recalled that pursuant to the Charter and to the Statute of the Court, decisions of the Court are binding.

In a sweeping legal victory for members of the Rohingya Muslim minority, the United Nations' top court ordered Myanmar take all measures in its power to prevent genocide against the Rohingya people.

The court's president, Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, said the International Court of Justice "is of the opinion that the Rohingya in Myanmar remain extremely vulnerable."

The court added that its order for so-called provisional measures intended to protect the Rohingya is binding "and creates international legal obligations" on Myanmar.

"I can say that the Secretary-General welcomes the Order of the International Court of Justice, indicating provisional measures in the case of The Gambia against Myanmar on the alleged breaches of the Genocide Convention," Farhan said.

The Secretary-General strongly supports the use of peaceful means to settle international disputes, he added.

At the end of an hour-long sitting in the court's wood-paneled Great Hall of Justice, judges also ordered Myanmar to report to them in four months on what measures the country has taken to comply with the order and then to report every six months as the case moves slowly through the world court.

Rights activists immediately welcomed the unanimous decision.