establish a national independent and impartial mechanism to determine the accountability of those in government who have committed unlawful or negligent acts resulting in the deaths, torture and mistreatment of civilians with a view to bringing legal and disciplinary action against such individuals, including those in the chain of command, military and civilian, who are found to be responsible under international standards of—superior responsibility.

Last week, the Bahrain government admitted the use of excessive force [JURIST report] in the protests. This admission, which was made in anticipation of the independent BICI report, was a reversal of the government's previous defense of its actions [CNN report]. In June, Khalifa announced that an independent commission would investigate human rights violations [JURIST report] related to the country's pro-democracy protests. Earlier that month, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) [official websites] announced that Bahrain agreed to permit a UN commission [JURIST report] to investigate human rights violations related to protests. In April, human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Doctors Without Borders (DWB) [advocacy websites] criticized Bahrain for rampant human rights abuses [JURIST report] related to anti-government protests.