The Role Of Civil Society In Sri Lanka’s Universal Periodic Review
Kirsty Anantharajah
Sri Lanka’s game playing at the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) during its first two reviews in 2008 and 2012 tested the ability of this human rights mechanism to achieve its aims and maintain the integrity of its principles, including objectivity and transparency. This post explores how the proactive participation of civil society pushed back against the rights ritualism displayed by the Sri Lankan state at the UPR.[i]
These analyses are particularly relevant to the Sri Lankan state, which is approaching its third review next year: Sri Lanka will be facing the UPR with a new government at its helm. Reflections on Sri Lanka’s previous two reviews must also communicate to Sri Lankan civil society its crucial role in human rights regulation through the UPR.
Narrating history
In both its reviews, Sri Lanka attempted to gloss over and conceal aspects of the nation’s recent experience of civil war, an ongoing rule of law crisis, and its peoples’ experience of human rights violations. The contributions of civil society through stakeholder submissions to the UPR provided a much needed alternative perspective.
Sri Lanka’s first review occurred in the temporal landscape of civil war that raged from 1983-2009 between Sri Lankan forces and the Tamil militant group the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE).
In its national report, Sri Lanka discussed constitutional and legislative measures facilitating racial equality, however, it avoided detailing the human rights situation on the ground. The stakeholder submissions stepped into this void, and laid the foundations for a more transparent review. According to the stakeholders, this temporal landscape was characterised by violence and discriminatory practices that targeted the nation’s ethnic Tamil minority. An increasingly endemic culture of ‘disappearances,’ torture and extra-judicial killings combined with growing state impunity marked the human rights situationduring this period. Sri Lanka’s first UPR cycle occurred in the later stages of this conflict. In its submission, a stakeholder expressed its fears, cautioning worse times ahead for Sri Lankan peoples:
…violations are likely to escalate further given [the] government’s failure to address impunity, increasing political interference of the government in the judiciary and other organs of the state, repression of dissent and ever more excessive powers to the security forces.
These concerns came to fruition during the final offensive of the civil war. This began only months after Sri Lanka’s initial review and concluded in May 2009. According to many stakeholders, this short period saw over 40 000 civilian deaths, and grave breaches of human rights law, humanitarian law and international law. A stakeholder’s submissionreflects the indiscriminant nature of the military offensive: ‘it made no difference between combatants and civilians.’ Another key feature of this offensive was ‘the repeated military action against Tamil people in the “no fire zones” established by the Government.’
Referring to this same offensive in its second national report, Sri Lanka congratulated itself for its victory over the LTTE. The final offensive was termed a ‘humanitarian operation,’ and the state detailed the ‘human rights focus’ of this military offensive. The report declared that ‘the humanitarian operation ensured for the people of the North and East their right to live in dignity and restored democratic freedoms. Sri Lanka blandly asserted that it had maintained a ‘zero civilian casualty policy.’
Sri Lanka’s second review occurred in the aftermath of its civil war. Submissions to Sri Lanka’s second review noted a continuing deterioration of human rights following the war. Torture and sexual violence against women by Sri Lanka’s security forces occurred against a backdrop of state impunity; enforced disappearances persisted; freedom of speech and human rights defenders were under serious attack; and discriminatory practices continued.
In its second report, Sri Lanka declared that the state had ‘achieved peace and social tranquillity’. In response to the international community’s concerns about disappearances perpetrated by the state, Sri Lanka declared: ‘the Police report a relatively good rate of success in tracing missing persons.’
Sri Lanka maintained a consistently self-congratulatory narrative in its provision of information to the UPR, and it was predominantly the UN and civil society organisations that provided the mechanism with a counter-narrative and information capable of shining a light into the ‘darkest corners of the world.’
