Symposium on Prosecuting Asia-Pacific Crimes: Beyond Borders – From Local Truth to Global Justice

[Za Uk Ling is the Executive Director of the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO)]

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Transcription:

My role today, representing the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO), is to bring the frontline reality directly into this room.

My presentation is titled Beyond Borders: From Local Truth to Global Justice. At the heart of today’s discussion lies a simple, but profound, question.

How does evidence gathered under fire become evidence that can stand in court?

Between the camera and the courtroom lies an extraordinary journey. It is a journey that is neither simple nor linear, but one that depends upon the courage of local communities, the resilience of frontline human rights defenders, and the willingness of international institutions to transform local truth into global justice.

In academic and institutional settings, documentation is often discussed through professional frameworks: chain of custody, digital verification, encrypted databases, and trauma informed interviews. These standards are indispensable. But since the 2021 military coup in Myanmar, CHRO has had to operate in a very different reality.

Our researchers work clandestinely inside active conflict zones. In many parts of Myanmar, local human rights defenders are often the only independent witnesses who remain after international access has disappeared. They document village burnings, air strikes, religious persecution, torture, forced recruitment, and mass displacement. They do so while facing enormous personal risk.

In our context, carrying a mobile phone containing evidence of atrocities is not merely a security concern. It can mean death at the next military checkpoint.

International accountability frameworks are often designed for relatively stable environments. Our reality is documentation under bombardment.

Earlier this year in Chin State, local villagers documented the aftermath of an air strike that killed several children.

Because internet access had been disrupted and military surveillance was intense. The evidence had to move quietly through multiple informal networks before it could safely reach outside actors. That is the environment in which local documentation takes place. People are not documenting atrocities after the violence ends. They are documenting while living through it.

The real challenge begins after the evidence is collected. The work is translation. Not simply translating language – but translating lived experience into evidence that legal system can understand, verify and trust. How do we bridge the distance between a destroyed village in Chin State and an international courtroom?

Without local documentation networks, many atrocity crimes in Myanmar would remain legally invisible.

We have had to redesign documentation methods around internet blackouts, military surveillance, physical insecurity, and repeated displacement. We have trained local human rights defenders to conduct interviews that protect both survivor dignity and evidentiary integrity.

At the same time, we constantly balance urgent humanitarian realities with long-term accountability needs. Recently, CHRO produced a short documentary titled Beyond Borders: From Local Truth to Global Justice.

The film follows this very journey from clandestine frontline documentation in ChinState to regional and international accountability efforts. It reminds us that behind every legal filing, every database entry, and every evidentiary submission, are communities risking everything, simply to ensure that the truth survives.

Universal jurisdiction is often viewed as a system driven primarily by courts in the global north. Our experience suggests another possibility. We increasingly see universal jurisdiction as a pathway for regional bottom-up accountability.

Just as importantly, our approach remains deeply victim centered. As I emphasized during my intervention at the Human Rights Council, people living through some of the darkest situations continue to look forward toward international accountability mechanisms as one of the last remaining sources of hope and moral leadership for survivors and affected communities.

Justice is not only about convictions or legal outcomes. It is about recognition. It is about knowing that their suffering has not been forgotten. That the loss of their loved ones was not meaningless. Many survivors simply want to know that somewhere beyond Myanmar’s borders, there are still people who care, still institutions willing to listen and still justice systems prepared to act.

I still remember one father whose 13-year-old son was brutally killed by military troops. Holding a photograph of his child, he asked whether anyone outside my would ever know what had happened to his son – and whether those responsible would simply continue living with complete impunity. That question has never left me.

For many affected communities, accountability itself becomes a form of acknowledgment, a confirmation that their pain matters. When domestic remedies inside Myanmar do not exist and international action is blocked by politics and veto power. affected communities cannot simply wait indefinitely.

Universal jurisdiction reminds us that accountability does not always have to wait for perfect political conditions. It can begin wherever courts are willing to apply the law.

That is why CHRO has supported regional accountability efforts in countries such as the Philippines and Timor-Leste, working alongside regional prosecutors, lawyers, and accountability partners. We’re exploring whether courts within Southeast Asia can become meaningful avenues for accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity. For many survivors, these cases represent the first time they have seen any justice system anywhere seriously engage with their suffering.

Justice pursued within the region carries particular significance. It demonstrates that accountability is not owned exclusively by distant international institutions. It shows that there are people within their own broader neighbourhood willing to stand with them. This is not simply a legal process. It is also an expression of regional solidarity and shared responsibilities.

To conclude, while legal accountability remains our ultimate objective, grassroots documentation possesses value far beyond courtroom outcomes. Authoritarian violence survives through the erasure of truth. Regimes attempt to destroy evidence alongside the communities themselves. But erasure is not carried out only through violence. It is also pursued politically.

Today in Myanmar, we’re witnessing attempts to manufacture the illusion of change through sham elections and the installation of a new so-called “administration”. While many of the very individuals responsible for atrocities, and some of the most brutal violence against civilians, are elevated into positions of authority within the new governing structure. At home, these efforts seek to normalize fear and erase public memory. Abroad, they seek regional and international legitimacy without accountability.

In that context, documentation itself becomes an act of resistance. Every testimony recorded, every destroy charge photographed, every air strike verified, every survivor’s account preserved, becomes a refusal to allow suffering to disappear from history.

The military may destroy villages. It may displace communities. It may attempt to erase evidence through fear, violence, and political reinvention. But as long as communities continue documenting the truth, impunity is never complete.

At CHRO, we see our role as helping bridge the distance between isolated conflict, affected communities and global justice mechanisms. Because every photograph, every testimony, every verified attack, is more than historical record. It is a declaration that truth cannot be bumped into silence.

Justice may move slowly, borders may delay it, politics may obstruct it, but as long as communities preserve the truth, accountability remains possible. Because every journey toward justice begins with someone deciding that the truth must survive.