About this Report

In March and April 2018, the Public International Law & Policy Group (PILPG), undertook an as yet unprecedented large-scale and comprehensive human rights documentation investigation mission in the refugee camps and settlement areas in Eastern Bangladesh. The purpose of this investigation mission was to provide an accurate accounting of the patterns of abuse and atrocity crimes perpetrated against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s Rakhine State and to help inform the policy decisions related to accountability in Myanmar. PILPG’s investigation team ultimately conducted 1,024 interviews with Rohingya refugees, and those interviews are the basis of this Report.

PILPG’s investigation collected more than 15,000 pages of documentation collected from the 1,024 interviews conducted by PILPG. PILPG reviewed all of this documentation and identified more than 13,000 instances of documented grave human rights violations. Based on all of this information, PILPG drafted its initial Factual Findings Report to outline the factual findings and initial conclusions from PILPG’s investigation mission.

Following the conclusion of the investigation mission, and with substantial support from an array of international attorneys and international criminal law experts, PILPG conducted an extensive legal analysis of the factual findings. This Factual Findings and Legal Analysis Report analyzes whether, based on the documentation collected during the investigation mission, there are reasonable grounds to believe that crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes have been committed against the Rohingya in Myanmar’s northern Rakhine State. The legal analysis is intended primarily for policymakers to provide guidance on the international legal ramifications of the investigation mission’s factual findings and to facilitate the formulation of effective measures to respond to the documented atrocities.

For media coverage by the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Politico, Al Jazeera and more, click here.