Tuesday Oct 06, 2026
Tuesday Oct 06, 2026
Tuesday, 6 October 2026 04:29 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Four UN Special Rapporteurs have warned that the proposed Non-Governmental Organisations (Registration and Supervision) Bill 2026, reportedly intended to help Sri Lanka meet international counter-terrorist financing standards ahead of its mutual evaluation this month, is inconsistent with those very standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), as well as with the right to freedom of association.
The evaluation, a peer review of the country’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime by the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering, a FATF regional body, carries high stakes for the economy.
Sri Lanka was placed on the FATF’s ‘Grey List’ of jurisdictions with strategic deficiencies in October 2017, following a review that began in October 2016. The listing prompted the European Commission to designate Sri Lanka a high-risk third country in February 2018, and the FATF removed the country from the list only in October 2019.
An adverse finding can raise Sri Lanka’s borrowing costs, restrict its relationships with international banks and add compliance costs and monitoring that weigh on the banking sector and wider economy, Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust Chairperson Ambika Satkunanathan said on 17 September at the launch of the Sri Lanka Civil Society FATF Shadow Report.
At the same event, Global NPO Coalition on FATF Co-Chair Sangeeta Goswami cited reduced access to correspondent banking relationships, the links through which local banks process international payments, and diminished international assistance, warning that such stakes push countries to over-comply, adopting restrictions well beyond what the FATF standard requires. The Bill is intended to replace the Voluntary Social Services Organisations Act of 1980.
The communication, dated 28 September, was signed by UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism Ben Saul, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Leopoldo Maldonado Gutiérrez, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association Gina Romero, and UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders Andrea Bolaños Vargas.
The experts noted the Bill was first published in 2024, reportedly without consultation with civil society or the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. The latest draft, of June 2026, adds provisions to monitor NGOs for compliance with counter-terrorist financing and anti-money laundering standards. It has not been made public and is undergoing restricted stakeholder consultations.
Under the Bill, all NGOs must register with a Competent Authority, and operating unregistered would be an offence carrying a fine of up to Rs. 1 million. Directors and office bearers of corporate bodies would bear criminal liability, which the experts said reverses the burden of proof. Registration would be valid for three years, with no deadline for the authority to decide on applications or renewals, no appeal against refusal, and a bar on starting activities until registration is granted.
The experts said this conflicts with the principle that associations need no State authorisation to be protected under Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). They cited a Human Rights Council resolution requiring registration to be transparent, accessible, expeditious, inexpensive and open to appeal, and to avoid re-registration.
The Bill’s scope covers nearly all civil society, from trusts and micro-finance NGOs to any group of five or more people engaged in social service, advocacy or consensus building, including informal community groups and volunteer networks. The authority may also force otherwise exempt bodies to register specific non-religious projects. The experts said the Bill makes no distinction by size or scope, placing a disproportionate burden on small, grassroots and minority organisations.
Among the obligations under Section 15, NGOs must “align with the policies of the Government”, avoid activities that affect sovereignty or territorial integrity, refrain from political advocacy with NGO funds during pre-election periods, notify the authority before any crowd-funding and follow Central Bank instructions. The experts said the policy alignment clause, together with the authority’s power to ‘liaise with NGOs to make them part of the development of the country’, risks suppressing minority and alternative views and chilling dissent, stressing that freedom of association also protects controversial and politically sensitive work.
They described grounds such as national security, sovereignty, public disorder and contravention of unspecified laws as vague and overbroad, failing tests of legality, necessity and proportionality. Without clear criteria, timelines or appeal, they warned, the regime could be applied arbitrarily against groups working on disappearances, land rights, transitional justice, minority and LGBTIQ+ rights, and governance and accountability.
The authority could suspend or deregister an NGO on these grounds, or where there is prima facie evidence of financial irregularities, while courts could deregister NGOs on grounds the Bill does not specify. The experts said the latter would fail the ICCPR requirement that restrictions be prescribed by law, adding that dissolution must be an exceptional last resort and that action should target individual wrongdoers rather than whole organisations.
They also objected to the authority’s powers to enter premises without a search warrant on prior notice, copy records, attend meetings, and obtain staff and funding details, all without judicial authorisation. Sharing NGO data with terrorist-financing and other regulators could breach the Personal Data Protection Act No. 9 of 2022 and the right to privacy, they said.
On terrorist financing, the experts said blanket regulation of all NGOs is inconsistent with the risk-based approach required by FATF’s revised Recommendation 8, under which measures must target only organisations shown to be at risk. They pointed out that Sri Lanka’s national risk assessment of January 2026 found the sector’s inherent risk to be low to medium, with limited evidence of proven terrorist financing by NGOs, and that the assessment weighed irrelevant factors such as the absence of provisions to “depoliticise” international NGOs. FATF standards hold that most NGOs pose no such risk and that self-regulation may suffice, they added.
“In applying excessive regulatory measures to all NGOs, the Bill appears to cast suspicion on the legitimacy of the activities of the NGO sector and the exercise of the right to freedom of association, with broader chilling effects on the exercise of human rights in a democratic society,” the experts said.
They cited earlier communications to the Government documenting intimidation, surveillance, arbitrary arrests and house raids against human rights defenders, and recalled that the Special Rapporteur on assembly and association, after a 2019 visit, had recommended against legislation mandating registration. A 2022 follow-up report found Sri Lanka continued “extremely restrictive practices” towards associations representing minority groups and viewpoints.
The experts asked the Government to explain how the Bill complies with international human rights and counter-terrorist financing standards, whether it will be withdrawn or extensively revised, and whether it will be gazetted for transparent, representative and inclusive public consultation. The communication and any Government reply will be made public and included in a report to the Human Rights Council.
