OHCHR gone beyond mandate
Special Envoy of the President on Human Rights, Minister Mahinda
Samarasinghe issuing a statement to the Geneva HR sessions yesterday
noted that issuing the Report of the Office of the High Commission on
Human Rights (OHCHR), the Office of the High Commissioner has gone
beyond the mandate granted under resolution 19/2 which limited her role
to reporting on the provision of technical assistance in terms of OP3
thereof.
The OHCHR has ventured into territory not envisaged by L.19/2 by
making substantive recommendations, the minister said.
“The recommendations contained in the Report introduce substantive
measures which are totally unrelated to the mandate under 19/2,” he
said.
“For these reasons, we would request Members of this Council to
critically evaluate the content and scope of this Report to ensure that
an unhealthy precedent should not be established. I would also urge you
to resist all attempts to use such a flawed and misconceived document to
be the basis on which this Council contemplates taking further action,”
Samarasinghe said.
“We also have concerns regarding the conduct of the OHCHR team who
immediately after their return to Geneva, chose to brief a selected
group of countries at an event hosted by a third country even before
sharing the outcome of their visit with Sri Lanka either in Colombo or
with the Permanent Mission in Geneva. Our Permanent Representative had,
at the time, raised these concerns with the High Commissioner. It is
interesting that the new draft resolution borrows heavily from the
language of the OHCHR Report. I submit that follow up action based on a
collection of inaccuracies and misconceptions is in itself fatally
flawed,” the minister said.
“In sum, it appears that the report is the outcome of no more than an
information gathering exercise that has served as launching pad for a
fresh resolution, rather than an attempt to stay within the bounds of
strictly following-up on L.19/2 which stipulates the requirement of
consultation and concurrence on the provision of technical assistance,
consistent with Resolutions 5/1 and 5/2.”
The statement also adds: “We wish to express our strongest
reservations as to the content of the report on Sri Lanka as well as the
procedure followed in formulating this document which bears number
A/HRC/22/38. This report purports to be pursuant to Resolution L. 19/2
which we have rejected. We also question how a technical mission, after
a visit of just over a week, could have produced such a document
purporting to be a comprehensive report pursuant to L.19/2.
We have already placed on record the numerous inaccuracies and
misconceptions which mar the report in an Addendum numbered
A/HRC/22/38/Add.1.
The Report refers several times to the United Nations Secretary
General’s Advisory Panel of Experts’ (PoE) Report on Sri Lanka. We
requested the OHCHR to delete all references to the PoE Report as it was
not referred to in the Resolution 19/2, and therefore reference to it in
the OHCHR Report expands the ambit of the Report beyond the original
scope and mandate of that Resolution. Furthermore, the PoE
Report on Sri Lanka was commissioned by the UN Secretary General as a
private consultation and is not the product or a request of the UN Human
Rights Council, or any other intergovernmental process.
Neither has it received the endorsement of any intergovernmental
body. Hence, it has neither credence nor legitimacy. In its Report, the
three-member Advisory Panel also makes it clear that the assertions set
out therein remain unsubstantiated and require a higher standard of
proof. For these reasons among others, the GoSL does not recognize the
PoE Report, and is perplexed as to the rationale behind it being invoked
extensively in the OHCHR Report.
As we pointed out in our statement to the High Level Segment of this
Session, the Government of Sri Lanka in good faith facilitated this
visit.
The OHCHR team engaged in a dialogue with Sri Lankan counterparts,
carried out field visits and held consultations with selected segments
of the Sri Lanka polity. The High Commissioner herself appreciates that
open access was granted.
Despite its dissociation from L.19/2 and measures pursuant to that
action in the Council, Sri Lanka has never ruled out cooperation with
the High Commissioner for Human Rights. We have had a Senior Advisor to
the UN Country Team from the OHCHR since the aftermath of the tsunami of
December 2004. In my former capacity as Minister for Human Rights, I
hosted the High Commissioner’s predecessor Madam Loiuse Arbour’s visit
to Sri Lanka, and her visit during the humanitarian operation in 2007
was characterized by open and constructive engagement. From 2008 onward,
the Senior Advisor from the High Commissioner’s office contributed to
the process of formulation of the National Action Plan on the Promotion
and Protection of Human Rights.
This demonstrates our willingness to work with the Office of the High
Commissioner.
As we have stated on many occasions, we have invited the High
Commissioner to visit Sri Lanka since April 2011 in pursuance of our
ongoing engagement. Despite her finding time to visit the region in the
recent past, in particular her visits to the South Asian sub-region
within the past 12 months, she has not been able to schedule a visit to
Sri Lanka when she could see for herself the remarkable transformation
taking place in the day to day lives of citizens after the defeat of
terrorism in 2009.”
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