The hybrid mechanism recommended by the UN's human rights office will not be effective in delivering accountability, the International Centre for Prevention and Prosecution of Genocide said in a statement.
The London-based organisation welcomed the OHCHR's report, which detailed serious allegations of mass atrocities committed during the armed conflict in Sri Lanka, but said the premise for a hybrid mechanism is flawed.
Commending the "admirable thoroughness" of the report, the ICPPG said a mechanism ensuring accountability must now be instituted.
"The Sri Lankan Government’s proposal of a domestic tribunal or as an offer of compromise to the international community, a hybrid tribunal, will not secure the aims that the Human Rights Commissioner has stated," the statement said.
"The Report itself speaks about the pressures that Sri Lankan judges are subject to. Such pressures will continue if domestic judges are appointed to a hybrid tribunal. The experience of the hybrid tribunal in Cambodia is a case in point. In situations where the alleged perpetrators still enjoy power within the Sri Lankan society, the possibility of such pressure is indeed certain,
"Only an impartial Prosecutor, appointed from overseas, performing the functions similar to those of the Prosecutor of the ICC, could perform the prosecutorial functions in an acceptable manner. Only an international tribunal trying crimes under international law through procedures devised in international conventions could deliver justice in respect of the international crimes recorded by the Report of the High Commissioner," the statement further said.
See full statement here.