Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 52 (2020)
Crime as Cognitive Constraint
response to what other experts have already commented upon. 27 It is
also meant to function as a cautionary tale for technologies operating
in incitement contexts. 28 The term “speech” used in this article refers
to the full range of modalities of expression. This article will proceed in
four parts. Part I begins with an account of Myanmar’s speech
landscape following the country’s political transition, and Facebook’s
role in shaping public discourse against the Rohingya. Part II provides
an overview of prohibited speech under international law and the
current regimes of legal responsibility for incitement to genocide.
Laying out the legal landscape for speech in this manner will reveal how
extant regimes result in a gap in liability for corporate involvement in
mass atrocity crimes. Part III discusses the common response to this
gap – to push for the prosecution of juridical or legal persons, whether
domestically or internationally. However, I will argue, using Facebook
in Myanmar as an example, how translating harm in the language of
crime can eclipse other cognitive frames, such as tort. Part IV briefly
sketches the promise of international tort liability and the contours of
an international mechanism, building on Steinitz’s blueprint for an
International Court of Civil Justice.
I.
Background
The outbreak of violence in October 2016 and August 2017 in
Myanmar’s Rakhine state forms the factual situation of the ICC’s
investigation. 29 These attacks did not spring from nowhere; they were
the culmination of decades of government-orchestrated communal
tension between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims. 30 In the
years preceding the attacks, “nationalistic political parties and
politicians, leading monks, academics, prominent individuals, and
27.
See sources cited, supra note 23.
28.
For instance, after Facebook banned Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing
from the platform, Myanmar military accounts started to appear in the
Russian social media platform, VKontakte. After Facebook ban, Myanmar
military accounts are moving to Russian social media site Vkontakte,
VOICES
ADVOX
(Sept.
7,
2018),
GLOBAL
https://advox.globalvoices.org/2018/09/07/after-facebook-banmyanmar-military-accounts-are-moving-to-russian-social-media-sitevkontakte/ [https://perma.cc/3EJ4-GGZ2].
29.
Situation in the People’s Republic of Bangladesh/Republic of Myanmar,
Case No. ICC-01/19, Prosecutor’s Request for Authorisation of an
Investigation Pursuant to Article 15, ¶ 5 (July 4, 2019), https://www.icccpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2019_03510.PDF (stating that “the 2017 wave
of violence was closely related to another wave of violence that started on
or about 9 October 2016”).
30.
See Francis Wade, MYANMAR’S ENEMY WITHIN: BUDDHIST VIOLENCE AND
MAKING OF A MUSLIM ‘OTHER’ (2017).
THE
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