Govt. to reiterate rejection of controversial accountability project

The main Opposition party, the SJB, won’t support the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) call for Sri Lanka to recognise the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC).Top SJB spokesman Dr. Harsha de Silva yesterday (07) said that there was no need for Sri Lanka to accept the ICC. The UNHRC proceedings continue until 08 Oct.

Dr. de Silva said so in response to The Island query in the wake of Geneva-based UNHRC asking the National People’s Power (NPP) to have Sri Lanka submit to the ICC jurisdiction.

Geneva Human Rights Chief Volker Turk will formally make the request to Sri Lanka today (08), when he presents a special report on Sri Lanka at the beginning of the 60th session of the global human rights body.

Dr. de Silva, who served as the deputy Foreign Minister during the Yahapalana administration, said: “We have not signed the Rome Statute. There is no reason to do so now.”

The SJB was part of the UNP government at the time that administration co-sponsored the accountability resolution targeting both the war-winning military and leadership.

According to an advance copy of Turk’s statement made available to the government and other relevant parties, Turk wants the government to release military held land, implementing confidence-building, halt new land seizures and accelerate titling efforts in the North and East, release all long-term detainees held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, supporting victim’s memorialisation initiatives and ensuring impartiality of the Office on Missing Persons (OMP), including by seeking international expertise and monitoring to build its credibility.

Authoritative sources, familiar with the Geneva process, said that the government’s stand at the 60tth session would be the same as in March 2025 (58th session). Ministerial sources told The Island that the government would respond depending on the resolution.

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative in Geneva, Ambassador Himalee Subhashini Arunatilaka, told the 58th session that Sri Lanka had consistently spoken out against country specific resolutions that do not have the concurrence of the country concerned. The Foreign Ministry quoted Arunatilaka as having said: “We have reiterated our rejection of Resolutions 46/1, 51/1, and 57/1 and the external evidence gathering mechanism on Sri Lanka that has been set up using these divisive and intrusive resolutions.

“The external evidence gathering mechanism on Sri Lanka within the OHCHR is an unprecedented and ad hoc expansion of the Council’s mandate, and contradicts its founding principles of impartiality, objectivity and non-selectivity. No sovereign state can accept the superimposition of an external mechanism that runs contrary to its Constitution and which pre-judges the commitment of its domestic legal processes.”

The UNHRC and NGO community want Sri Lanka to support the Sri Lanka Accountability project meant to gather evidence against Sri Lanka. Geneva Human Rights chief will repeat the request at the latest session, too.

The accountability project has been established in terms of the resolution 46/1. According to Turk, through the accountability project, Geneva has continued to expand its secure repository, which now contains over 105,000 items, including approximately 75,800 from the 2015 Geneva Investigation on Sri Lanka, around 2,000 from earlier United Nations initiatives, and 34,000 independently collected by the project over the past four years. Turk is on record as having said: “This repository serves as a unique resource to support truth and justice efforts, capturing patterns of international crimes including enforced disappearances, unlawful killings, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, and violations affecting children. Despite calls to relevant States to supplement OHCHR’s repository,91 no significant information has been received from them to date.”

Retired military officers said that now that Geneva has declared it was having over 105,000 items, they would like to know how many were from the period of the Indian Army deployment here. Under the Indo-Lanka peace accord signed in July 1987, India deployed as many as 100,000 men but the mission ended in disaster when the LTTE declared war on the Indian Army. Nearly 1,500 Indians perished here. There are no accurate figures pertaining to loss of LTTE lives as well as civilians.

by Shamindra Ferdinando