Posts Categorized: International

ITJP: Time for the UK to Sanction Sri Lanka’s Army Commander

by International Truth & Justice Project, South Africa, April 12, 2021 Johannesburg: The International Truth and Justice Project has compiled  a 50-page dossier which it has submitted to the Sanctions Department of the UK’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office on General Shavendra Silva. The Submission argues why  Silva, who is Sri Lanka’s current Army Commander,… Read more »

US State Dept. 2020 Human Rights Report on Sri Lanka

by US Department of State, Washington, DC, March 30, 2021 SRI-LANKA-2020-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ANNOUNCEMENT: The Department of State will release an addendum to this report in mid 2021 that expands the subsection on Women in Section 6 to include a broader range of issues related to reproductive rights.​ Sri Lanka is a constitutional, multiparty democratic republic… Read more »

When a Kidnap Marred George H.W. Bush’s Only India Visit

Rebel Tamil outfit Eelam People’s Revolutionary Liberation Front abducted an American couple from their Jaffna residence in May 1984. by T. Ramakrishnan, The Hindu, Chennai, December 1, 2018 The only visit of former U.S. President George H.W. Bush to India in May 1984 was marked by the episode of abduction of an American couple by… Read more »

TIC: UNHRC Resolution

TIC PRESS RELEASE 25 March 2021 Resolution of the UN Human Rights Council – March 2021 The Tamil Information Centre (TIC) welcomes the Resolution on Sri Lanka adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 23 March 2021 at its 46th Session,  titled “Promoting Reconciliation, Accountability and Human Rights in Sri Lanka” (A/HRC46/L.1/Rev.1)…. Read more »

UNHRC Resolution 46/1

A welcome move for the United Nations, Security Council and International Community to uphold accountability and rein in Sri Lanka. by Thambu Kanagasabai, LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law; University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 31, 2021 At the 46th Session of UNHRC, the final Resolution on Sri Lanka was passed with 22 members voting… Read more »

UNHRC Outlines Sri Lanka Abuses, But Demurs on Action

by Kate Cronin-Furman, JustSecurity.org, New York, March 26, 2021 (Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series on the spotlight placed on allegations of war crimes and other abuses in Sri Lanka during the February 22 to March 23, 2021, session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. The series includes voices from former… Read more »

UNHRC Resolution 46/1

March 23, 2021 webcast of vote A/HRC/46/L.1/Rev.1 Tabled March 16, 2021 Human Rights Council Forty-sixth session 22 February–23 March 2021 Agenda item 2 Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General                         Albania,* Australia,* Austria, Belgium,* Bulgaria, Canada,* Croatia,* Cyprus,*… Read more »

The Uyghur Genocide

An Examination of China’s Breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention by Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, Washington, DC, March 2021 Executive Summary 1. This report concludes that the People’s Republic of China (China) bears State responsibility for committing genocide against the Uyghurs in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention… Read more »

When War Criminals Run the Government

Not Too Late for the International Community to Vet Sri Lankan Officials by Sondra Anton & Tyler Giannini, JustSecurity, March 16, 2021 (Editor’s Note: This is the latest in a series on the spotlight placed on allegations of war crimes and other abuses in Sri Lanka during the February 22 to March 23, 2021, session… Read more »

UNHRC Resolution – Improved, but Insufficient

for Accountability & Justice by Thambu Kanagasabai – LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 14, 2021 Sri Lanka’s contemptuous stand regarding UNHRC Resolutions 30/1, 34/1 and 40/1 as rejected by it has come under discussion in the current 46th Session of the UNHRC which is expected to pass a… Read more »

Accountability in Transition to Nowhere

by Ambika Satkunanathan, Daily FT, Colombo, March 15, 2021 In Sri Lanka, historical acts of commission and omission by successive governments have led the Tamil population to believe there is little possibility they will be treated as equal citizens and included as full members of a multi-ethnic polity. Here, a poverty-stricken young mother in Jaffna… Read more »

ITJP: Geneva Briefing Notes

by International Truth & Justice Project Sri Lanka, South Africa, February 2021 TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE WORK GENEVA BRIEFING NOTES With Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka, the ITJP has jointly authored 6 BRIEFING NOTES to frame the discsussion on Sri Lanka for the March 2021 session of the UN Human Rights Council. They are in English and… Read more »

Why Does India Not Have a Geneva Game-Plan?

by Kumar David, Colombo Telegraph, March 10, 2021 Why is there uncertainty, even at this late stage, about the stand India will take on the UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka’s long ended civil war and overlapping allegations that the current regime harbours authoritarian ambitions?  India’s silence is both curious and significant. There are three substantive players in the… Read more »

1985 Thimpu Talks

Sinhala-Tamil conflict and the India factor by S Sivanayagam, Tamil Information Centre, London, 2000 Thimpu Talks 1985 by Sivanayagam *** zfinal_Thimbu_080900_final (sangam.org)  

Keep the Promise

by Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace & Justice, London, March 2021 The promise Following a landmark international investigation, in September 2015 the United Nations released a major report on serious human rights violations committed during the final stages of the civil war and the surrounding period (2002-2011). The document, known as the ‘OISL Report’ was clear in… Read more »

Upholding or Upending Accountability & Justice

byThambu Kanagasabai LLM [London] Former Lecturer in Law, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, March 4, 2021. The 46th Session of UNHRC now in progress has generated heated comments and discussions in Sri Lanka and elsewhere among Tamils as well as the Council is readying to pass a final Resolution against Sri Lanka after five tiring… Read more »

Sowing the Seeds of Conflict

Letter to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, February 18, 2021 Letter to HCHR Sowing-the-Seeds-of-Conflict Feb 18 2021 Signed by Chair of the ‘Elders’ Mary Robinson, the former president of Ireland Juan Manuel Santos, the Nobel Peace Prize winning former president of Colombia All the former UN Human Rights High Commissioners since the Human… Read more »

Experts Dismayed by Regressive Steps

Call for renewed UN scrutiny and efforts to ensure accountability by Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, February 5, 2021 UN human rights experts have expressed their deep concern on 5 February 2021 about the reversal of important democratic gains achieved since 2015 and roll back on limited progress made on accountability,… Read more »

OHCHR: Sri Lanka on Alarming Path

Towards recurrence of grave human rights violations – UN report by UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, January 21, 2021 OHCHR Report on Sri Lanka 27 January 2021 GENEVA (27 January 2021) – A new UN report published on Wednesday warns that the failure of Sri Lanka to address past violations… Read more »

When Big Powers Clash, the UN’s Most Powerful Body Disappears

by Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service, New York, December 4, 2020 UNITED NATIONS, Dec 4 2020 (IPS) – At the height of the Cold War back in the 1960s, a Peruvian diplomat, Dr. Victor Andres Belaunde, characterized the United Nations as a politically wobbly institution that survives only at the will– and pleasure– of the five… Read more »