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 numberA/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 mark the report in an Addendum numbered A/HRC/22/38/Add.1.
We note that in the Report, 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 recommendations contained in the Report introduce substantive measures which are totally unrelated to the mandate under 19/2.
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.
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