Southeast Asia Studies Seminar Series: “Status of the Civil Service Personnel of the Myanmar Civil Disobedient Movement: National and International Legal Perspectives” Yin Yin Win, Associate Research Scholar, Council on Southeast Asia Studies

Myanmar’s military staged a third coup on 1 February 2021 and overthrew the elected civilian government. The National League for Democracy (NLD) was accused of election fraud and the incubation of democracy was lawlessly ruined by the junta. The people of Myanmar who voted for the landslide victory of NLD in the November 2020 Election rejected the military coup and participated in the Spring Revolution’s civil disobedience movement (CDM). Inspired by Gandhi’s non-violent movement, participants in CDM support the Revolution by expressing their Constitutional rights, and by adhering to existing laws, and international human rights law. For the sake of the Spring Revolution, the CDM is composed of three major groups: the public, private sector businesses and associations, and civil service personnel. As of December 2023, 210,635 civil service personnel are actively participating in the CDM and fighting against injustice and dictatorship. The junta has attempted to brutally suppress the CDMers, especially by enacting new laws and policies that threaten the lives and safety of civil service personnel and their families. In this presentation, I show that the junta is responsible for a breach of international law and recommend that the international community should support and recognize the status of civil service personnel in the civil disobedience movement, and their role in the Spring Revolution of Myanmar.

Yin Yin Win was a Professor of Law at the University of Yangon, Myanmar and she is a human rights activist and environmental activist. She served as a civil service, educator, and legal advisor for more than 20 years in Myanmar. Because of her work as a legal advisor of the Universities in Yangon Region’s Civil Disobedience Movement Support Network, a warrant was issued against her by the junta on March 8, 2021. She applied for refugee status in the United States and resettled in the United States in July 2021. Brooklyn Law School appointed her as a visiting scholar from August 2021 to June 2022. She achieved a master’s in international human rights law degree from Notre Dame Law School in May 2023. She is currently an associate research scholar with the MacMillan Center, sponsored jointly by the Council on Southeast Asian Studies and the Institute of International Education (IIE).