Accountability Under International Criminal Law
Beyond the question of sovereignty, the RSNB-GIE is documenting evidence of serious human rights violations in Sabah that may constitute crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. These include systematic persecution of indigenous communities, forced displacement, and the deliberate engineering of demographic change to undermine indigenous peoples' claim to their land.
Project IC — The Sabah RCI Findings
The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (Sabah RCI), which reported in 2014, confirmed that identity documents and citizenship had been unlawfully granted to large numbers of foreign nationals — primarily from the Philippines and Indonesia — in what is known as "Project IC" or "Project Mahathir." This systematic demographic manipulation, if proven to have been carried out as a deliberate state policy, may constitute a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute.
Our Legal Strategy
The RSNB-GIE is working with international legal scholars and human rights lawyers to prepare a comprehensive communication to the International Criminal Court documenting the evidence of these alleged crimes. We are gathering testimony from affected communities, analysing official documents, and building a case file that meets the evidentiary standards required for ICC consideration.