News
Move to extend OHCHR’s hold on Lanka for two more years
View(s):By Chandani Kirinde
Sri Lanka will remain under the oversight of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for the next two years, with a draft resolution to extend the mandate of the OHCHR due for passage within the next two weeks at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
However, the Government will have a breather till September 2027, when the next comprehensive report on the progress on reconciliation, accountability and human rights is due before the UNHRC.
The main sponsors of the resolution are the United Kingdom, Canada, Malawi, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. The US, which co-sponsored the 2022 Sri Lanka resolution, withdrew from the UNHRC in February.
The term of the dedicated OHCHR Sri Lanka accountability project (OSLap) too will be extended by the resolution.
The project is an evidence-gathering mechanism to develop possible strategies for future accountability processes for gross violations of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law in Sri Lanka and to support relevant judicial and other proceedings, including in Member States with competent jurisdiction.
While the new resolution acknowledges the government’s anti-corruption efforts as well as its acknowledgement of the harms and sufferings resulting from decades of divisive racist politics and ethnic conflicts in the country, it highlights the urgent need to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act and amend the Online Safety Act.
The resolution refers to the identification of multiple mass grave sites in Sri Lanka and stresses the need for ongoing work to be provided with adequate resources and the importance of the independent and effective functioning of the Office on Missing Persons.
It urges the Government to proactively seek international support to ensure sufficient financial, human and technical resources to conduct exhumations in line with international standards, as well as seek international assistance to strengthen capacities while investigating and prosecuting some emblematic cases of human rights violations, as well as the Easter Sunday bombings.
It also acknowledges with appreciation the Government’s commitment to establish an independent public prosecutorial body while urging that this be fully independent, effective and robust, and encourages the Government to consider the creation of a judicial mechanism with an independent special counsel in relation to the cases of human rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law committed in previous decades.
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