The Crimes Against Humanity in Burma Initiative is a concerted global effort by a number of leading human rights organizations and advocacy groups to end war crimes and crimes against humanity and to bring the responsible military generals of Burma to justice to be prosecuted for their heinous crimes.

For decades, Burma’s military regime has been carrying out scorched-earth campaigns against its own civilian population, destroying over 3,500 ethnic villages, using rape as a weapon of war, enslaving hundreds of thousands of Burmese people as forced laborers, killing innocent civilians, and forcing over 2 million people to flee their homes as refugees and internally displaced persons.

Such flagrant crimes are not simply human rights abuses – they are mass atrocities, amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes. Compounding the brutality and magnitude of such international crimes is the system of impunity, which protects perpetrators and punishes victims.

A UN-led Commission of Inquiry is an important step we can and we must take to end the aura of impunity for those directing and most accountable for grave human rights violations in Burma. This Commission will serve as a fact-finding mission, investigating and documenting the crimes against humanity and war crimes taking place in the country. It will then render findings and recommendations over these crimes and explore international justice options including a potential referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC).