A/HRC/7/68 page 16 disturbing. In January 2008, I wrote to the Prime Minister urging the Government to redouble its efforts to end impunity and expressing my concerns at the lack of progress since my visit in January 2007. 67. The Government circulated a draft truth and reconciliation commission bill in July, but it contained provisions contrary to the treaty obligations of Nepal and international principles. In particular, it failed to guarantee the commission’s independence, providing considerable leeway for Government interference. It also contained provisions which would lead to amnesties for those responsible for serious human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law. Moreover, limits on the mandate would undermine its potential to provide a comprehensive account of conflict-related violations. 68. OHCHR submitted comments on the bill to the Government and highlighted the importance of broad-based consultations of all stakeholders, including victims. Limited regional consultations on a slightly improved version of the bill began in December, but substantial OHCHR concerns about the original bill had not been addressed. Following the agreement undersigned by SPA on 23 December requiring it to establish the commission within one month, there were fears that the bill would be expedited. Following intense national and international pressure, the Government announced that, given the gravity of the issue, further consultations were necessary. OHCHR offered to provide technical assistance for designing a national consultations strategy. 69. Hundreds of cases of conflict-related disappearances remain unresolved. They include almost 200 people who disappeared mostly after arrest by security forces in Bardiya District in 2001 and 2002, and the cases of individuals tortured and disappeared from the (Royal) Nepalese Army Bhairabnath battalion barracks documented in an OHCHR report in May 2006, to which OHCHR has never received a full Government response. In December, human rights defenders, including the National Human Rights Commission, revealed a site where one of the individuals who disappeared from the Bhairabnath battalion barracks may have been cremated by the Nepalese Army and called for protection of the site pending investigations. Cases of individuals still missing after abduction by CPN(M) have also not been clarified. In June 2007, the Supreme Court issued a ground-breaking decision on several cases of disappearance, by which it ordered the Government to enact a law to criminalize enforced disappearances in accordance with the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance; to establish a commission of inquiry on conflict-related disappearances in compliance with international standards; to prosecute those responsible for disappearances; and to provide compensation to victims’ families. The decision, although a significant step towards recognizing the right of victims of disappearance and their families to truth, justice and reparation, has not yet been implemented by the Government. 70. The Government tabled a bill before the interim Legislature-Parliament in April to make disappearance, abduction and hostage-taking criminal offences under domestic law. Civil society, OHCHR and others welcomed the initiative in principle, but raised a number of concerns about the bill, including that it might not apply retrospectively and that it imposed a maximum penalty of only five years’ imprisonment for disappearances. Provisions on disappearances were withdrawn from the bill in November 2007, as was a Civil Code