UN should refer Sri Lanka to ICC, or setup criminal tribunal, says Boyle

[TamilNet, Friday, 29 January 2016, 02:20 GMT]
Condemning Sri Lanka's President's rejection of any international involvement in investigating alleged war crimes committed during Sri Lanka's civil war, Professor Francis Boyle, an expert in International Law and who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law, said "Sri Lanka's President Sirisena himself has now driven the proverbial stake through the heart of the genocidal Vampire of a GOSL domestic mechanism dressed up with the fig-leaf of meaningless international participation," and added, "[i]f the reference of the GOSL to the International Criminal Court by the U.N. Security Council is still stymied by a threatened veto...the UN must establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka as a “subsidiary organ” under U.N. Charter article 22."

Full text of Prof. Boyle's comment follows:

"Sri Lanka's President Sirisena himself has now driven the proverbial stake through the heart of the genocidal Vampire of a GOSL domestic mechanism dressed up with the fig-leaf of meaningless international participation that was recommended by the bogus United Nations Human Rights Council at the behest of the pro-GOSL United States government.

"A President is Head of State. A President has Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Powers to act in the name of the State and definitively bind that State as a matter of international law. What a President says goes for good. Under basic principles of international law, when a President rejects something that is it. There is nothing more to argue about.

"The so-called domestic mechanism with the window-dressing of international participation is now Dead as a Doornail thanks to President Sirisena himself.

"So the situation is now like the World expecting the Nazis to investigate and prosecute themselves for their crimes against the Jews, including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Instead the World set up the Nuremberg Tribunal for that purpose.

"If the reference of the GOSL to the International Criminal Court by the U.N. Security Council is still stymied by a threatened veto by one or more of its Permanent Members acting in cahoots with the GOSL (i.e., United States, Britain, France, Russia, China), which seems likely, then the United Nations General Assembly must establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka as a “subsidiary organ” under U.N. Charter article 22," Professor Boyle said.

External Links:

BBC:

President: 'No one else should solve Sri Lanka's problems'