This week the text of the UN Human Rights Council resolution on Sri Lanka will be finalised and voted on by member states. Amid the intense deliberations of the past weeks in Geneva, the crux of the problem in the island has been laid bare. Even as diplomatic missions, international NGOs, numerous Tamil actors and some Sinhala ones have campaigned for mandating an international independent investigation into Sri Lanka’s wartime atrocities and ongoing abuses, the arguments of those calling for a more tolerant and accommodative approach have been thoroughly discredited by Colombo’s own conduct: not only has the government rejected out of hand calls for accountability for some of the worst atrocities of the century, it has, in a direct snub to the UNHRC, intensified its repression and terrorising of the Tamil people.

The third week of the UN Human Rights Council's 25th session begins today with palpable sense of renewed impetus towards the need for concrete action. The second draft of the resolution calling for accountability in Sri Lanka has evidently been strengthened. The High Commissioner's office is called upon to establish a stand alone investigative mechanism. The strengthening of the text is without doubt welcome however ambiguity remains around the core issue of an international investigation into mass wartime atrocities. As the continued calls from international and Tamil voices for a Commission of Inquiry highlight, questions remain over the nature and scope of the investigation envisaged in this latest text - will it have the necessary mandate, sufficient resources and right direction to go beyond mere fact-finding but gather evidence towards a judicial process and prosecutions.

UN Human Rights chief Navaneetham Pillay’s forthcoming report to the Human Rights Council, extracts of which appeared this weekend in a Sri Lankan newspaper, makes a clear and unambiguous call: for an international investigation into the mass atrocities of the final months of the island’s civil war. The High Commissioner’s call will be welcomed by the diverse array of actors, both ‘local’ and international, who have been steadfastly campaigning for five years for accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity in which at least 70,000 people were systematically slaughtered in 2009. In particular, it will be enthusiastically welcomed by the Tamil people, for whom the mass killings – described by an earlier report by a UN panel of experts as amounting to ‘systematic targetting' and 'persecution’ of them – constituted genocide by the Sri Lankan state.

As India’s External Affairs Minister arrived for the CHOGM summit today, he sought to underplay the significance of the Indian Prime Minister’s absence. Manmohan Singh was forced to withdraw in response to concerted political pressure from Tamil Nadu where the State Assembly has unanimously passed two resolutions demanding an Indian boycott. Whilst Tamil Nadu insists that India must make justice for the Tamils central to its policy in Sri Lanka, Delhi thinks otherwise. Wedded to an out of date Cold War framework in which great power interests are calibrated by spheres of influence, and subsequently driven by paranoia about Chinese investments in the region, it desperately seeks influence in Sri Lanka and is willing to collude with Colombo’s crimes to that end. But this conciliatory approach is bound to fail. The central obstacle to Indian interests on the island is the Sinhala Buddhist majoritarian order that produced the Rajapaksa presidency. Until India works to undermine and contain this, it will not be able to realise any of its commercial, political or diplomatic objectives on the island.

Amidst mounting criticism from an array of voices, the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary continue to insist that they will be attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo next month, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office going to extensive lengths to defend this decision.