A Licnese to Torture ? elements in war crimes and crimes against humanity.10 Myanmar is not a state party of Rome Statue. Myanmar is a signatory to the UN’s 1948 Prevention of Genocide Convention (Genocide Convention) and it is obliged to abide by and comply with the customary international law and peremptory norm (jus cogens) that equivocally prohibit torture. 1.2 Practice of Torture and Ill-treatment in Myanmar Myanmar’s legal framework stipulates the prohibition of torture. The 1861 Penal Code of Myanmar prohibits ‘hurt and grievous hurt’ during an official interrogation and bans injury to anyone by a public servant despite lack of explicit definition of and designation of torture as an unacceptable crime. However, torture has been a constant feature of Myanmar’s military and security forces for decades.11 The Myanmar military, the very perpetrator of inhuman treatment and torture has never been held accountable for its evident crimes of torture in Myanmar’s history. Members of the security forces including armed forces, police, army, military intelligence, prison authorities, wardens have utilized torture as a means for extracting information, unlawful punishment and instigating fear among civilians while the forms of torture range from psychological threats to physical assaults causing temporary and permanent disability, and even death. The indiscriminate employment of torture by the military regime can affect not only the dissenters but any civilian population regardless of age, gender, disability and vulnerability such as being a child or pregnant, instead particularly targeting such vulnerable characteristics among the family members of the accused. Two types of groups have been mostly subjected to torture by the Myanmar military throughout history.12 People who practice their right to freedom of conscience, right to freedom of expression and right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association including but not limited to politicians, activists and human rights defenders struggling and fighting for democracy and human rights are the first targeted group. Secondly, civilians and residents in the areas where the resistance armed groups, including ethnic armed organizations and the regime forces engage in armed clashes are often subjected to several forms of torture and other ill-treatment. Torture has been utilized by the military against political opposition and ethnic minority communities prior to the 2021 Spring Revolution and 1988 Pro-democracy Uprising. For instance, a former political prisoner who had been arrested in November 1968, six years after the coup detat led by military general Ne Win, as Amnesty International 14 10 1998 Rome Statute, Art 7, Art 8 11 Amnesty International, Myanmar: The Institution of Torture, 2000 12 Ibid. AAPP, Torture, Political Prisoners and Un-rule of Law: Challenges to Peace, Security and Human Rights in Burma, 2010 Equality Myanmar