Updated

The top U.N. human rights body has approved by consensus a resolution aimed to increase accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka in the aftermath of its decades-long civil war that left tens of thousands of people dead.

International advocacy groups hailed the measure by the Human Rights Council in Geneva for calling for international judges and lawyers to help ensure the judicial process in Sri Lanka, where authorities have long avoided investigating alleged war crimes by its forces.

Thursday's resolution also calls on Sri Lanka to allow for punishment of "those most responsible for the full range of crimes."

Ambassador Julian Braithwaite of Britain, one of four co-sponsors along with the United States, Montenegro and Macedonia, hailed the "historic" achievement because Sri Lanka's increasingly democratic government backed the resolution.