Colombo: A US-initiated draft resolution on Sri Lanka’s alleged human rights violations has called for a domestic judicial mechanism that includes foreign judges to probe the war crimes during the conflict with the LTTE, a development that may help it avoid an international inquiry.
The draft resolution, co-sponsored by Sri Lanka, the US the UK, Macedonia and Montenegro was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva on Thursday with several amendments to the original text proposed earlier in the week, officials here said on Friday.
The resolution comes a week after the publication of a long-awaited UN report that called for establishing a hybrid court to probe the horrific atrocities, specially during the last stages of the three-decade conflict.
Titled ‘Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka’, the draft resolution is still open for last minute amendments before before it is taken up for a vote next week. Sri Lanka, which has been insisting on a domestic mechanism, was trying to water-down the tone of the resolution after last weeks UNHRC report.
The draft resolution submitted “maintains its call on the government to investigate all alleged attacks by individuals and groups on journalists, human rights defenders, members of religious minority groups and other members of civil society, as well as places of worship, and to hold perpetrators of such attacks to account and to take steps to prevent such attacks in the future.
The draft resolution said it “welcomes the government’s recognition that accountability is essential to uphold the rule of law and build confidence in the people of all communities of Sri Lanka in the justice system. It “takes note with appreciation of the Government of Sri Lanka’s proposal to establish a Judicial Mechanism with a Special Counsel to investigate allegations of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, as applicable.