AUDIO: Sri Lanka slams Navi Pillay
September 12, 2011 02:45 pm
Sri Lanka today slammed the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem ‘Navi’ Pillay for departing from the clear procedures of the UN Human Rights Council. We draw the attention of this body to a potentially worrying concern of a growing trend to depart from well established principals of procedure in the conduct of the affairs of this council, Mahinda Samarasinghe said today.
He said this addressing the 18th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. In a surprising turn of events Sri Lanka was confronted with some information in the most peculiar circumstances. On the 9th of this month at a luncheon briefing we were given to understand that the High Commissioner for Human Rights had informed a group of countries that a decision had been taken by the office of the UN Secretary General to transmit the report of his advisory panel on Sri Lanka to the office of the President of the council and hers. Previous to this communication in a course of an interaction with you madam president (UNHRC) there was no reference to any such transmitting. It was rather embarrassing that both you and I had to learn of it through a third party at the luncheon meeting with representatives of 29 member states, Samarasinghe stated.
The failure on the part of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to inform the concerned state Sri Lanka was fully inappropriate to say the least, he added. Samarasinghe stated that this regrettably may lead to a loss of confidence in the office of the High Commissioner.
Sri Lanka believes that Navi Pillai should abide by the same principles that govern the work of the Human Rights Council such as universality, transparency, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, he added. He further stated that this incident raises concerns regarding the impartiality of the High Commissioner(Pillai), adding that this practice must be discouraged by the council.
Today it could be Sri Lanka, tomorrow it could be any other member state that faces this predicament, he stated.
He said this addressing the 18th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva. In a surprising turn of events Sri Lanka was confronted with some information in the most peculiar circumstances. On the 9th of this month at a luncheon briefing we were given to understand that the High Commissioner for Human Rights had informed a group of countries that a decision had been taken by the office of the UN Secretary General to transmit the report of his advisory panel on Sri Lanka to the office of the President of the council and hers. Previous to this communication in a course of an interaction with you madam president (UNHRC) there was no reference to any such transmitting. It was rather embarrassing that both you and I had to learn of it through a third party at the luncheon meeting with representatives of 29 member states, Samarasinghe stated.
The failure on the part of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to inform the concerned state Sri Lanka was fully inappropriate to say the least, he added. Samarasinghe stated that this regrettably may lead to a loss of confidence in the office of the High Commissioner.
Sri Lanka believes that Navi Pillai should abide by the same principles that govern the work of the Human Rights Council such as universality, transparency, impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity, he added. He further stated that this incident raises concerns regarding the impartiality of the High Commissioner(Pillai), adding that this practice must be discouraged by the council.
Today it could be Sri Lanka, tomorrow it could be any other member state that faces this predicament, he stated.
