"As a variety of international actors, including over a dozen countries and a score of civil-society organizations, increase their calls for a United Nationsmandated Commission of Inquiry to be established for the purpose of investigating the systematic violation of human rights in Burma, the Burmese regime has repeatedly argued that ?An independent investigation in international law requiresthe exhaustion of local remedies.”1 This statement, made by the Burmese delegation at its Universal Periodic Review in January 2011, is accurate to the point that, if Burma were both able and willing to impartially and effectively investigate human rights violations through domestic mechanisms, and to appropriately act on the results of such investigations, the international community would be obliged to wait for domestic judicial systems to run their course before initiating an international investigation of heinous crimes within Burma. If Burma cannot or will not hold its human rights violators to account, however, it becomes both the right and the responsibility of the international community to intervene..."