The United Nations Third Committee is likely to adopt a resolution this week with a call to expedite the process to set up the independent mechanism to investigate the gross human rights violation in Myanmar.
The resolution is expected to be endorsed by the committee in New York on Friday, said an official.
It will be endorsed at a time when the first batch of Rohingyas is set to be repatriated to Rakhine.
The consideration of the Third Committee shows that human rights violation is a matter of concern for the international community, said the official.
He said, “the mechanism will collect evidence of the gross human rights violation in Rakhine and other places in Myanmar and based on it, case can be filed against perpetrators in any national, regional or international court .”
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is also investigating the crimes in Rakhine and the UN process will strengthen the court’s effort to bring the Myanmar perpetrators to justice, he said.
The resolution is co-sponsored by 99 countries, he added.
Last year on Nov 16, similar resolution expressing grave concern about human rights situation in Myanmar was adopted at the third committee. That time 97 countries co-sponsored the resolution.
Expressing deep concern, this year’s draft resolution stipulates that Rohingya population have been living in Rakhine for generations even before Myanmar got its independence, but they were made stateless by the 1982 citizenship laws.
It reaffirmed that denial of citizenship is a serious human rights violation.
The 22-paragraph resolution urged the Myanmar government to sustain democratic transition by bringing all national institutions including military under the civilian government.
Expressing grave concern about different human rights crimes including murder, rape, disappearance, torture, sexual slavery and violence, the resolution concluded that Myanmar military consistently fail to respect international human rights laws.
It also urged the Myanmar authorities to hold the perpetrators accountable and remove them from power.
The resolution acknowledges that as many as 723,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh due to systematic oppression and discrimination and asks to create conducive environment expeditiously for repatriation.
Meanwhile, in 2015 a resolution titled ‘Human Rights Situation in Myanmar’ was adopted, where a single paragraph addressed the crisis in Rakhine. However, this time and last year, the entire resolution centred the Rohingyas.
As many as 135 countries supported last year’s resolution while 10, including China and Russia opposed it with another 26, including India and Indonesia, neither supported nor opposed it.
Bangladesh is now home to 1.1 million Rohingyas after last year’s mass exodus when insurgent attacks led to a sweeping crackdown by the Myanmar military in Rakhine.