Amidst confusions over the proposed mechanism to probe alleged war crimes, civil society organizations this week said that the international community was not obsessed with having foreign judges in a judicial mechanism with a special counsel to probe alleged war crimes in Sri Lanka. “If the Government of Sri Lanka is definitely not going ahead with foreign judges it is up to the Government to negotiate and convince stakeholders regarding the matter and ensure that there will not be any adverse impact on the country as the result of it. If the Government is definitely not going to go ahead with having foreign judges, then the Government should inform the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of such a decision. The Government should then work towards building sufficient confidence and trust in a domestic mechanism, following which the Government should negotiate and convince the relevant parties,” he explained. He also reminded that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) was not a body that could impose sanctions while adding that it could however be done by individual countries in relation to, for an example bilateral agreements involving Sri Lanka.

Source: The Nation March 17, 2017 19:52 UTC