3RD LEAD

Boyle prefers IIIM demand over ICC-referral, says specific reference to genocide essential

[TamilNet, Thursday, 07 January 2021, 00:04 GMT]
The Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) has made it clear that it will not cooperate with the UNHRC. It is time for the UNHRC to take action against the GoSL, said Professor Francis Boyle, an international law expert who teaches at the University of Illinois College of Law in the USA. Human Rights High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet could forward the situation to the Security Council or the General Assembly if she wants to, he said, responding to a set of questions coming from the Tamil politicians on the ground. However, getting a new resolution with specific reference to genocide is essential, Prof Boyle said. “You have to keep up the reference to genocide. This is the gravamen of your Complaint against the GoSL.” Asked whether he preferred the demand for ICC-referral over the IIIM demand, he said: “I would go for the IIIM along the lines of Syria and for the same reasons”.

“I have already recommended to another Tamil group to follow the Syria precedent, work through the General Assembly, and mention genocide. Basically and with all due respect, UNHRC is just jerking you around,” Boyle commented further.

His comments come as more than two-hundred-and-fifty Tamil organisations in the UK demanded their government to sponsor a Resolution at the 46th UN Human Rights Council to create an International Independent Investigative Mechanism relating to Sri Lanka to investigate and prosecute for serious international crimes committed in Sri Lanka, including the crime of genocide of Tamils.



In the meantime, a section of Tamil activists, including those connected to the TNPF, have been wondering if there is a possibility of pursuing ICC action outside the UN system as well by evoking an Article 15 Communication to Office of the Prosecutor (OTP). “Personally, I think you would be wasting your time,” Boyle commented about that option.

“For the sake of completeness, I would only add that the UN General Assembly could establish an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka as a ‘subsidiary organ’ of the UN General Assembly under UN Charter Article 22,” he added.

“Maybe the Tamil Community in Canada could request the Canadian Government to sponsor such a Resolution in the UN General Assembly. To avoid political controversies about the nature of the conflict in Sri Lanka, it would be my advice that the Resolution follows in the footsteps for the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda including its Charter and not for Yugoslavia.”

For ICT Sri Lanka, one should use the International Criminal Tribunal model for Rwanda to avoid the dispute over the conflict’s nature—international vs internal, he reiterated.

“Indeed, the Canadian Tamil Diaspora could start a Public Campaign to convince the Canadian Government to put this UNGA Resolution for the ICTSL into operation.”

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Kingsley Abbott, the senior legal advisor for Global Redress and Accountability of the International Commission of Jurists and Saman Zia-Zarifi, the secretary general of the organisation wrote a two-part post in OpinioJuris in April 2019, titled “Is It Time to Create a Standing Independent Investigative Mechanism (SIIM)?”.

In their introduction to the article, they wrote:

“The International Independent Investigative Mechanism for Syria and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar are recent examples of States responding to situations where avenues for accountability for crimes under international law are otherwise limited.

“Both mechanisms, created respectively through the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), have mandates that extend beyond traditional human rights monitoring, documentation and reporting to include the preparation of files that can be used in national, regional, and international criminal trials.

“Unsurprisingly, their establishment has led to calls for the creation of similar mechanisms to address other situations where accountability for widespread and systematic “atrocity crimes” has been elusive, such as for Sri Lanka.”

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External Links:

OpinioJuris:		Is It Time to Create a Standing Independent Investigative Mechanism (SIIM)?
IIIM on Syria:		IIIM Syria: Terms of Reference

Chronology: