"Action at the International Criminal Court (ICC) requires a country or the UN Security Council to initiate action. Alternatively, the United Nations can create an International Criminal Tribunal for Sri Lanka along the lines of tribunals set up for Rwanda, Bosnia and Yugoslavia. Individuals can also be charged under universal jurisdiction in other countries," he said while speaking at a talk titled "Prosecuting War Crimes in Sri Lanka: "No Reconciliation without Justice" at the Harvard Law School earlier this week.
Mr. James discussed options available for prosecuting war crimes committed in Sri Lanka during the final stages of the war in 2009 to ensure justice to the victims.
In the talk Ross described how HRW exhausted all options to stop the mass killings during the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka where more than 300,000 Tamil civilians were holed up along with Tamil Tiger units in a narrow stretch of beach front.
"The efforts proved futile as no-fire safe zones were indiscriminately attacked with the loss of tens of thousands of civilians," Ross said.
Mr. Ross elaborated the actions taken by HRW and other International Agencies to bring to justice war criminals in Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Serbia, Bosnia and Sierra Leone’s Chuck Taylor.
He also outlined possible options available for the Sri Lankan Government and the International Community to investigate war crimes in Sri Lanka.
Replying to questions put by audience, Ross said that if any of the above options do not work in case of Sri Lanka, international community has to create pressure continuously as this effort yielded positive outcomes in the past.
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