Human Rights Accountability In Sri Lanka

Establishes a framework for analyzing and assessing the accountability mechanisms of international organizations, and applies it to three case studies.

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject South Asian Studies, South-Eastern Asian Studies, grade: A, , course: INTL5550, language: English, abstract: On May 18, 2009 the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and ended a 30-year conflict. The way the final phase of the war was fought, how it ended and what happened with the Tamil civilians and LTTE combatants at the end of the hostilities became a controversial issue. The Security Council (SC) considered the war and the internments of the internally displaced people (IDP) as an internal matter. The GoSL always called the final stage of the war a “humanitarian rescue operation” and presented its actions as part of a large hostage rescue operation (This was based on the well-known fact that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were holding back civilians in its territory). At the end of the hostilities, civilians were put in overcrowded, closed camps for “InternalIy Displaced Persons” (IDPs) with limited humanitarian assistance where they were exposed to harassment by security forces who were looking for LTTE fighters likely to be hiding among them. After more than a year, on June 22, 2010 the SG announced the appointment of an ‘Experts’ Panel’ to inform him of the progress of the commitment made by the GoSL after his visit in 2009. The UN Panel of Experts completed its report at the end of March 2011 and made it public on April 25. The Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission's (LLRC) accountability initiative had by then conducted eight months of public hearings and the GoSL was very concerned that the earlier publication of the UN Panel report would compromise its domestic driven initiative. Past events are the underlying cause for a need for a reconciliation process. They are well documented and the author has referred to them when strengthening or clarifying an argument. The length of this document does not however, allow for a detailed account of the conflict history in Sri Lanka. This essay will firstly analyze the process that led to the establishment of the LLRC and its working modalities including its mandate. Secondly, it will critically assess the final report and a selection of LLRC major findings of the LLRC. It will then discuss some key elements, based on the framework of restorative justice, which could be deemed essential for an improved reconciliation process in Sri Lanka. As a conclusion, it will propose required key short- and long-term policy changes in order to facilitate the reconciliation process.

What happens when the international community simultaneously pursues peace and justice in response to ongoing conflicts? What are the effects of interventions by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the wars in which the institution intervenes? Is holding perpetrators of mass atrocities accountable a help or hindrance to conflict resolution? This book offers an in-depth examination of the effects of interventions by the ICC on peace, justice and conflict processes. The 'peace versus justice' debate, wherein it is argued that the ICC has either positive or negative effects on 'peace', has spawned in response to the Court's propensity to intervene in conflicts as they still rage. This book is a response to, and a critical engagement with, this debate. Building on theoretical and analytical insights from the fields of conflict and peace studies, conflict resolution, and negotiation theory, the book develops a novel analytical framework to study the Court's effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. This framework is applied to two cases: Libya and northern Uganda. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, the core of the book examines the empirical effects of the ICC on each case. The book also examines why the ICC has the effects that it does, delineating the relationship between the interests of states that refer situations to the Court and the ICC's institutional interests, arguing that the negotiation of these interests determines which side of a conflict the ICC targets and thus its effects on peace, justice, and conflict processes. While the effects of the ICC's interventions are ultimately and inevitably mixed, the book makes a unique contribution to the empirical record on ICC interventions and presents a novel and sophisticated means of studying, analyzing, and understanding the effects of the Court's interventions in Libya, northern Uganda - and beyond.

This edited volume brings together well-established and emerging scholars of transitional justice to discuss the persistence of amnesty in the age of human rights accountability. The volume attempts to reframe debates, moving beyond the limited approaches of 'truth versus justice' or 'stability versus accountability' in which many of these issues have been cast in the existing scholarship. The theoretical and empirical contributions in this book offer new ways of understanding and tackling the enduring persistence of amnesty in the age of accountability. In addition to cross-national studies, the volume encompasses eleven country cases of amnesty for past human rights violations: Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia, Rwanda, South Africa, Spain, Uganda and Uruguay. The volume goes beyond merely describing these case studies, but also considers what we learn from them in terms of overcoming impunity and promoting accountability to contribute to improvements in human rights and democracy.

"This 59-page report documents various torture methods used by the Sri Lankan police against criminal suspects, including severe beatings, electric shock, suspension from ropes in painful positions, and rubbing chili paste in the genitals and eyes. Victims of torture and their families may spend years seeking justice and redress with little hope of success"--Publisher's description.