In an unprecedented development, the UN Commissioner, in her report, has called on member nations to refer Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC) while going on to recommend targeted sanctions on individuals, including punitive action such as travel bans and freezing of assets. It is to be noted that the UN Commissioner’s call to refer Sri Lanka to the ICC, which is the court of last resort when all domestic options have been exhausted, points to the fact that the UNHCR has lost faith in domestic mechanisms that have been proposed by successive governments over the past 12 years.
