UN rights body grants Sri Lanka two more years to set up war crimes probe

UN rights body grants Sri Lanka two more years to set up war crimes probe

1. The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)has passed by consensus a resolution to grant Sri Lanka another two years to set up a credible war crimes investigation into the civil war. Further, Tamil national Alliance has demanded the government of Sri Lanka to adhere to the commitments and include foreign judges in a judicial mechanism to probe the alleged war crimes.
2. In 2015, UNHRC had adopted a resolution on accountability for the alleged human rights violations during the Sri Lankan civil war. The resolution had called upon Sri. lanka to establish a credible judicial process, with the participation of Commonwealth and other foreign judges, defence lawyers and authorised prosecutors and investigators, to go into the alleged rights abuses.
3. The resolution was adopted in the backdrop of Sri Lankan government troops been accused of killing at least 40,000 ethnic Tamil civilians in the final months of the island’s 37-year guerrilla war that ended in May 2009.
4. UNHRC is an inter-governmental body headquartered at Geneva, Switzerland. It is made up of 47 members states. Members are elected by the United Nations General Assembly(UNGA) with 3-year terms, with a maximum of 2 consecutive terms. UNHRC meets 3 times a year to examine human rights violations worldwide. Its resolutions are not legally binding but carry moral authority.