The Rohingya crisis & Bangladesh-Myanmar relations

The exodus and its legal architecture

The Rohingya are a Muslim minority concentrated in Myanmar's Rakhine State. Myanmar's 1982 Citizenship Law excludes them from the 135 recognized "national races," rendering them de facto stateless. Persecution produced successive outflows into Bangladesh in 1978 (Operation Nagamin), 1991–92, and most consequentially after 25 August 2017, when Myanmar's military (Tatmadaw) launched "clearance operations" in northern Rakhine following attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA). Within months roughly 742,000 Rohingya crossed into Cox's Bazar, joining earlier arrivals to total over one million registered refugees—the largest, fastest refugee movement in the region in decades.

Where they are sheltered

Bangladesh concentrated the population in the Cox's Bazar district, where Kutupalong-Balukhali became the world's largest refugee settlement. To relieve congestion and ecological strain, Dhaka developed Bhasan Char, a silt island in the Bay of Bengal, relocating tens of thousands from December 2020 onward—a policy criticized by rights groups over consent and flood risk, later visited by a UNHCR delegation under a 2021 MoU. Bangladesh is not a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol, so it classifies the population as "Forcibly Displaced Myanmar Nationals" (FDMNs) rather than refugees, preserving the legal position that their status is temporary and that repatriation is the only durable solution.

International accountability tracks

Three distinct legal and political processes run in parallel and are frequently confused in answer scripts:

1. The UN Fact-Finding Mission (FFM), established by the Human Rights Council in March 2017, reported in 2018 that the operations were carried out with "genocidal intent" and named senior Tatmadaw commanders.
2. The International Court of Justice (ICJ): in November 2019 The Gambia, backed by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), filed The Gambia v. Myanmar alleging breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. On 23 January 2020 the Court ordered provisional measures requiring Myanmar to prevent genocidal acts and preserve evidence; in July 2022 it rejected Myanmar's preliminary objections and assumed jurisdiction.
3. The International Criminal Court (ICC): in 2019 the Pre-Trial Chamber authorized an investigation into the deportation as a crime against humanity—jurisdiction grounded in the fact that the coerced cross-border movement was completed on the territory of Bangladesh, an ICC State Party, even though Myanmar is not.

Repatriation that never began

Bangladesh and Myanmar signed an Arrangement on Return in November 2017 and a Physical Arrangement in January 2018. Two attempted repatriations—November 2018 and August 2019—collapsed because no Rohingya volunteered to return absent guarantees of citizenship and safety. The 1 February 2021 Myanmar military coup, ongoing civil war, and the Arakan Army's 2024 advances in Rakhine have frozen prospects further, leaving the burden squarely on Bangladesh.

Bangladesh-Myanmar relations beyond the camps

The Rohingya question dominates but does not exhaust the bilateral relationship. The two states share a roughly 271-km land border and a maritime boundary in the Bay of Bengal that was settled by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in its landmark 14 March 2012 judgment—the first ITLOS maritime delimitation—which awarded Bangladesh a substantial exclusive economic zone and continental-shelf rights, including beyond 200 nautical miles. This victory, secured under UNCLOS Part XV dispute settlement, is a high-yield fact: it is frequently paired in questions with the 2014 UNCLOS Annex VII arbitral award delimiting the Bangladesh-India maritime boundary.

Trade is modest and asymmetric, conducted partly through border haats and the Teknaf land port; connectivity ambitions such as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (an India-Myanmar venture) and BIMSTEC frameworks intersect with Bangladesh's interests. Security frictions have sharpened since 2022: mortar shells and gunfire from the Myanmar side spilled into Bangladeshi territory near Bandarban, and in 2024 Myanmar military personnel and border guards fleeing the Arakan Army crossed into Bangladesh and were repatriated—episodes that test Dhaka's policy of strategic restraint.

Why this matters for the exam

For the BCS International Affairs paper, the Rohingya crisis is the single most testable Bangladesh-specific foreign-policy issue, appearing in both the written paper and the viva. Examiners probe three layers. First, factual command: the 25 August 2017 trigger, the ~1 million figure, the 1982 Citizenship Law, Bhasan Char, and the FDMN classification. Second, the legal/institutional map: candidates must distinguish the ICJ case (The Gambia v. Myanmar, Genocide Convention, 2020 provisional measures) from the ICC investigation (deportation, Bangladesh-territory jurisdiction) from the UN FFM—a classic place to lose marks by conflating courts. Third, policy analysis: why bilateral repatriation under the 2017–18 arrangements failed, how the 2021 coup and Arakan Army gains changed the calculus, and what burden-sharing options (third-country resettlement, the Joint Response Plan, OIC and UNHCR roles) remain.

PYQ angle: questions typically ask candidates to evaluate Bangladesh's diplomatic options or assess the international community's response—analytical, not merely descriptive. A strong answer cites the ITLOS 2012 verdict to show that Dhaka has successfully used international law before, then argues for sustained internationalization of the Rohingya file. Retain these anchors: 1982 (citizenship), 2012 (ITLOS), 2017 (exodus and bilateral arrangement), 2019 (ICJ filing, ICC authorization), 2020 (provisional measures), 2021 (coup, Bhasan Char relocations).