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A UN-backed team investigating alleged war crimes in Myanmar is at risk of losing more than a third of its people to looming funding shortfalls, in what would be a heavy blow to hopes of holding the accused to account.
The Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar (IIMM) has been collecting and preserving evidence of the worst alleged crimes across the Southeast Asian country since the body was created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2018.
The year before, Myanmar’s military unleashed a wave of arson, rape, and murder in the country’s far west that drove more than 700,000 ethnic minority Rohingya across the border to Bangladesh. Over 6,000 men, women, and children were killed in the pogroms by some estimates. The United States and others labelled it a genocide.
Tens of thousands more have been killed in conflict since 2021, when the military toppled the government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who herself had downplayed the charges of ethnic cleansing lobbed at the military by the UN and other international bodies. This set off a bloody civil war that continues to rage.
In its proposed budget for 2026, however, the UN would cut its funding for the IIMM by some 15%. An anticipated drop in voluntary contributions from donors in the coming year, as countries shift their spending priorities to defense and other needs, could shrink the IIMM’s funds even further.
In all, the cuts could force the IIMM to shed up to 27 positions next year, more than a third of its 77 staff and full-time consultants, Kaoru Okuizumi, the deputy head of the team, told The New Humanitarian.
“Concretely, what that may mean is that we investigate fewer incidents or we may have to postpone the investigation of some incidents until a later time.”
That could mean axing whole units focused on scouring open-source data or investigating gender-based violence and crimes against children.
“Justice is not cheap, that’s clear. So, if there are less resources … the possibility is that there’s less accountability,” Okuizumi said.
“Concretely, what that may mean is that we investigate fewer incidents or we may have to postpone the investigation of some incidents until a later time.”
Postponing investigations runs the risk of losing some evidence to the passage of time, she added, “so there are significant repercussions of reduced resources”.
In an address to the UN General Assembly in New York in October, Secretary-General António Guterres said the cuts in the proposed budget for 2026 were “calibrated to maintain balance” among the UN’s security, development, and human rights work, while keeping the focus on developing countries.
In its assessment of the proposed budget, however, the non-profit International Service for Human Rights said the anticipated cuts posed an “existential threat” to the UN’s human rights system and cited the IIMM as an example.
The cuts looming over the IIMM also come as the work before it grows. In its latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, in September, the IIMM said war crimes and crimes against humanity across Myanmar were being committed “with increasing frequency and intensity”.
The military’s relentless air and artillery strikes are reportedly targeting not only the many armed resistance groups arrayed against it but churches, schools and clinics in rebel-held territory. In Myanmar’s central Sagaing region, a military airstrike on a candlelight vigil in protest of the junta in October killed more than 20 people, according to Amnesty International.
Some resistance groups are accused of war crimes as well, the Arakan Army most of all. There have been many reports of the group abducting, conscripting, torturing, and murdering ethnic Rohingya across the north of Rakhine state, which it now mostly controls. But most claims of war crimes across Myanmar still fall on the military.
“I lost all hope for my life”: Arakan Army accused of detaining Rohingya in forced labour camps
Myanmar’s largest armed ethnic group has taken control of most of Rakhine from the ruling junta but is also accused of widespread abuses.
Forcing the IIMM to scale back now would be a “bow to impunity”, Matthew Smith, CEO of Fortify Rights, an advocacy group that investigates human rights abuses in Myanmar and elsewhere, told The New Humanitarian.
“The people of Myanmar have been dealing with impunity for mass atrocities, for horrific atrocities for decades, and the IIMM is a part of the solution,” he said. “It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s a key part of the patchwork of solutions that need to come forward, not go backwards.”
Many rights groups have been investigating and documenting Myanmar’s alleged war crimes over the decades, and especially since the 2021 coup. But most do not focus on Myanmar alone, and few have as many people as the IIMM dedicated to working on Myanmar exclusively.
The IIMM also has the unique mandate of collecting and preserving evidence specifically to help with the current or future criminal prosecutions of those most responsible for the crimes it investigates, whether committed by the military or any other group.
That includes the crucial work for any prosecution of keeping a clear chain of custody of the evidence – a record of who has had possession of it from start to finish – to be able to prove it is authentic and has not been compromised.
“Our work is analogous to a national law enforcement agency or prosecution service,” said Okuizumi.
The IIMM also carries out regular field visits to Bangladesh and elsewhere – Myanmar has remained off limits because of the civil war and the military’s grip on the government – for thorough interviews with witnesses. The team may spend up to a week with a single witness to take statements that can run to 45 or 50 pages.
Okuizumi said the team takes its independence seriously by avoiding the advocacy work many other groups investigating Myanmar’s war crimes also do, for example, and collecting not only evidence that may prove someone guilty but that which may show them to be innocent, if they find any.
“Our mandate is primarily to share what we collect in terms of evidence with national or international investigative, prosecutorial, or judicial authorities. So, the evidence that we collect could be potentially used directly by these authorities, whereas I think a lot of the work that NGOs do, for example, would need further work in order to be used as evidence in criminal proceedings,” she said.
The IIMM has already begun sharing its evidence with the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, and the federal prosecutor’s office of Argentina, which are all investigating Myanmar’s military leaders for their alleged crimes against the Rohingya before the 2021 coup. Some of them have issued or requested arrest warrants for Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s top military commander, and others.
In announcing his request for a warrant for Min Aung Hlaing in 2024, ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan called the IIMM’s cooperation “essential” to advancing his investigation.
The IIMM has also shared valuable evidence with the prosecutors in Argentina, said Tun Khin, an ethnic Rohingya and one of the eight plaintiffs in that case.
He believes the IIMM’s strict independence has been key to its cooperation with Argentina’s prosecutors, and worries about what the team’s downsizing could mean.
“Those kinds of independent courts,” he said, speaking of Argentina, “they need independent reports, independent evidence from independent bodies. If [the IIMM] cannot collect, justice is going to be slow.”
The prosecutor’s office said the IIMM has provided detailed reports and statements from several witnesses dealing specifically with the crimes under investigation.
“This level of documentation and field access would not have been possible without their involvement,” said Argentinian federal prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan.
Some rights groups are also trying to convince various courts to open investigations into the alleged crimes of the military and others since the coup.
Fortify Rights submitted a 215-page complaint accusing the military of crimes both before and after the coup to federal prosecutors in Germany in 2024. The prosecutors decided against opening an investigation, in part because none of the accused were in Germany. The NGO says it may appeal. It has also urged the ICC to investigate the Arakan Army.
Other groups have filed complaints in Türkiye and the Philippines against the military for its alleged crimes since the coup.
None of the complaints or open investigations have yet proceeded to trial, however, and none of the accused are in custody anywhere. They have either stayed put in Myanmar or kept their travels to countries where they know they’ll be safe from arrest, mainly China and Russia.
But Smith, of Fortify Rights, said the IIMM will play a crucial role if and when the day comes that any of them are put on trial, which is why all the work it is doing now needs to be maintained.
“History has shown us that accountability for mass atrocity crimes often seems impossible, until it isn’t,” he said.
“The IIMM needs to be a sustainable institution so that, when the time does come, there is enough evidence that’s been preserved, that’s actionable, that prosecutors can actually take and apply immediately.”
With a third less staff, Okuizumi said, the IIMM will have to be more selective about the crimes it investigates and likely focus more on those that courts and prosecutors are already investigating themselves. It will also keep looking for ways to be more efficient, by using more artificial intelligence to sift through reams of data and partnering with other UN-backed groups doing similar work.
Tun Khin said forcing the IIMM to scale back for a lack of funds would only embolden Myanmar’s military leaders and dull what hopes their victims have that they will face justice some day.
“No matter who is who, no one is above the law,” he said. “Whoever committed any crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity, we must bring them to justice.”
Edited by Ali M. Latifi.
