Human Rights Watch says Sri Lanka’s progress on UN resolution for two years scant

Geneva: The New York-based global rights organisation, Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday called on United Nations member countries at the Human Rights Council in Geneva to press Sri Lanka to promptly meet the targets of the council’s October 2015 resolution for transitional justice.

HRW said Sri Lanka should put forward a time-bound and specific implementation plan on the four transitional justice mechanisms it agreed to establish as pledged in the resolution.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, in his opening remarks at the Council on 11 September, highlighted Sri Lanka’s lack of progress, and called on the Government to realise that its obligations are not a mere “box-ticking exercise to placate the council but an essential undertaking to address the rights of all its people.”

“Governments at the Human Rights Council should be clear with Sri Lanka that setting up various reconciliation offices and talking of progress is not the same as implementing the 2015 resolution,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Long-suffering Sri Lankans need to see the resolution fully carried out, and they need to see evidence that justice is being achieved.”

Sri Lanka has largely failed to implement the consensus UN resolution, Human Rights Watch said. The Government dismissed the report submitted by the Consultation Task Force, a broad-based civil society effort established by the Government to put the resolution into effect. And it took Sri Lanka’s president 18 months to formally create an Office of Missing Persons, as set out in the resolution and enacted by Parliament. The gazette notification took place on 12 September, just as the Human Rights Council session got underway and a few weeks before Sri Lanka is to present an oral update on steps it has taken to carry out the resolution.

The Government’s lack of progress in investigating and prosecuting alleged war crimes committed by both sides in the 30-year war against terrorism resulted in the Human Rights Council adopting the consensus resolution. The Sri Lankan Government agreed to carry it out and report back periodically on its progress.

HRW noted that Sri Lanka has invited several UN human rights experts to visit over the past two years and has given them free and unfettered access. However, the Government has largely disregarded their recommendations. One of the key undertakings in the resolution was security sector reform, including repealing and replacing the draconian Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) with new legislation that meets international standards. Instead, the Government has floated various drafts that in some cases are worse than the existing law, which remains in effect, the rights organisation says.

The UN special rapporteur on transitional justice, Pablo de Grieff, will make his first official trip to Sri Lanka from 10-23 October.

“The special rapporteur has been engaged in transitional justice issues in Sri Lanka for a long time, and it is crucial for him to use his first official trip to call out Sri Lanka on its hesitant steps toward justice for victims,” Ganguly said. “Sri Lankan officials need to show that they can do more than just talk the language of human rights and instead put those words into action.”