Sri Lanka: UN Chief Should Establish International Inquiry

                                                                                             
                                                                                         
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 Sri Lanka: Account for Wartime Disappearances
The Expert Panel’s finding that the government and Tamil Tigers committed abuses and that the government has failed to hold its forces accountable shows the need for an international investigation. Russia and China should stop blocking efforts to find justice for victims in Sri Lanka and support the panel’s recommendations. Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch

Russia and China Should Stop Blocking Justice for Victims

April 25, 2011

Related Materials: 

Sri Lanka: UN Experts Submit Report

Sri Lanka: Account for Wartime Disappearances

The Expert Panel’s finding that the government and Tamil Tigers committed abuses and that the government has failed to hold its forces accountable shows the need for an international investigation. Russia and China should stop blocking efforts to find justice for victims in Sri Lanka and support the panel’s recommendations.

Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) - United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon should act on a UN Panel of Experts' recommendations to establish an international independent investigation into abuses during Sri Lanka's armed conflict that ended in May 2009, Human Rights Watch said today. Ban's statement on April 25, 2011, indicating the need for Sri Lankan government consent or action by an intergovernmental body should not place an unnecessary obstacle to establishing a justice mechanism, Human Rights Watch said.
The panel's report, published on April 25, 2011, concluded that both government forces and the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) conducted military operations "with flagrant disregard for the protection, rights, welfare and lives of civilians and failed to respect the norms of international law" during the final months of Sri Lanka's 26-year-long war. The panel also concluded that "Sri Lanka's efforts, nearly two years after the end of the war, fall dramatically short of international standards on accountability and fail to satisfy either the joint commitment of the President of Sri Lanka and the Secretary-General, or Sri Lanka's legal duties."   Full Story>>>
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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Sri Lanka: UN rights chief urges further investigations into reports of war crimes

Sri Lanka: UN rights chief urges further investigations into reports of war crimes

High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay

26 April 2011 – The United Nations human rights chief today urged further investigations into the conduct of the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka after a UN panel into those events found there were credible reports that both Government forces and Tamil rebels had committed war crimes. Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she hoped that the “disturbing new information” in the report of the three-member panel – which was released yesterday by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – “will shock the conscience of the international community into finally taking serious action.
“As the report itself says, addressing violations of international humanitarian or human rights law is not a matter of choice or policy; it is a duty under domestic and international law,” Ms. Pillay said, according to a press release issued by her office in Geneva.     Full Story>>>