Grounds for voiding the Indo-Lanka Accord
By Neville Ladduwahetty-July 15, 2013
The earlier call by India’s Minister of External Affairs Mr. Salmon Khurshid urging Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment in full and even go beyond was followed by a similar call by India’s National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon during his recent visit to Sri Lanka. While India does not seem to miss any opportunity to remind Sri Lanka of implementing the 13th Amendment, a vibrant debate is going on within Sri Lanka regarding its retention in the current form, revision of certain provisions, or repealing its altogether.
While the focus is on the 13th Amendment, little attention has been paid to the agreement that precipitated the 13th Amendment namely, the Indo-Lanka Accord. This may be due to a perception that the 13th Amendment is an internal construct and therefore within Sri Lanka’s jurisdiction to revise or repeal, while the Indo-Lanka Accord is a Treaty between two sovereign states. If a Treaty, it needs to comply with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 for it to be valid. Therefore, if Sri Lanka demonstrates that India failed to fulfil provisions of the Vienna Convention, grounds exist under provisions of international law for the Indo-Lanka Accord to be voided.
The Island editorial of July 10 listed 5 specific obligations [2.16 (a) to (e)] specified in the Indo-Lanka Accord that the Indian Government was expected to fulfil, and commented on the effects of non-compliance against each of these 5 obligations, the most important being India’s failure to stop the violence which actually grew in ferocity and intensity over the operation of the Accord. The editorial concluded that the Accord "is now defunct to all intents and purposes".
