Intl media has not confirmed Ban Ki-moon’s status on controversial report by Prof Philips

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has not informed Sri Lanka that he is considering the appointment of a commission of experts to address possible violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in response to a controversial report by Special Rapporteur for Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions Philip Alston, international media says.
Instead, the last time Ki-moon made this proposal was more than three months ago, well before Alston told the UN that the controversial Channel 4 “execution” video was verified as authentic by three independent analysts. On Thursday, Alston presented the Channel 4 report to media and said during a press conference that an independent inquiry should be formed to investigate war crimes and other grave violations human rights allegedly committed in Sri Lanka.
In the aftermath of his remarks, widespread publicity was given to comments by Ki-moon’s spokesman, Martin Nesirky, that the UN secretary-general has told Sri Lanka he is considering the appointment of a commission of experts to advise him further and to assist the government in addressing possible violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. But a subsequent inquiry into when the call for such a commission was made has revealed that Ban Ki-moon’s proposal was more than three months old. In fact, no action is reported by Ban Ki-moon in relation to Alston’s call last week for an independent inquiry. Meanwhile, the government has rejected Alston’s report and criticised him for violating procedure by going public with the findings of the three analysts.
When Inner City Press probed exactly when Ki-moon had communicated this to the Rajapaksa administration, Nesirky “had to belatedly acknowledge that it had been in mid-September”, the news agency reported. “Since then, it seems clear, nothing has been done,” it said.
A UN spokesman, when asked by a journalist yesterday whether the secretary-general had the legitimate right to appoint a commission to probe human rights violations in Sri Lanka without a mandate from the general assemble or the Security Council, said: “He appointed the Guinea Commission of Experts without any explicit Council mandate.”