Sri Lanka: UN rights chief urges further investigations into reports of war crimes

(26 April 2011-UN)The United Nations human rights chief today urged further investigations into the conduct of the final stages of the conflict in Sri Lanka after a UN panel into those events found there were credible reports that both Government forces and Tamil rebels had committed war crimes.

Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said she hoped that the “disturbing new information” in the report of the three-member panel – which was released yesterday by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon – “will shock the conscience of the international community into finally taking serious action.

“As the report itself says, addressing violations of international humanitarian or human rights law is not a matter of choice or policy; it is a duty under domestic and international law,” Ms. Pillay said, according to a press release issued by her office in Geneva.

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38194&Cr=sri+lanka&Cr1=