By Easwaran Rutnam
A fresh resolution against Sri Lanka is not expected to be submitted at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March next year, human rights organisations told The Morning.
Sources said that while Sri Lanka was expected to show more progress on the human rights issue by March 2019, there is no push at the moment to bring a negative resolution on Sri Lanka next year over its failure to meet most of the expectations.
One international human rights organisation told The Morning, on the condition of anonymity, that while it was having discussions with various stakeholders on Sri Lanka, the general opinion is that a resolution against Sri Lanka will not be helpful.
In March this year, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had expressed much regret over the slow progress in establishing transitional justice mechanisms in Sri Lanka.
United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that the OHCHR welcomed the government’s constructive engagement with them regarding the human rights mechanisms, including its cooperation with the visit of its council’s Special Rapporteur on human rights and terrorism; on truth, justice, reparation, guarantees of non-recurrence, along with the visit of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
Gilmore had said that in the absence of concrete results or publicly available drafts of legislation, it seemed doubtful that the transitional justice agenda committed to by the Government under resolution 30/1 could be fully implemented before the next report of OHCHR in March 2019.
The United States, which cosponsored the earlier resolutions on Sri Lanka in June, withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, dismissing it as a “cesspool of political bias” for its anti-Israel stance.
A fresh resolution against Sri Lanka is not expected to be submitted at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in March next year, human rights organisations told The Morning.
Sources said that while Sri Lanka was expected to show more progress on the human rights issue by March 2019, there is no push at the moment to bring a negative resolution on Sri Lanka next year over its failure to meet most of the expectations.
One international human rights organisation told The Morning, on the condition of anonymity, that while it was having discussions with various stakeholders on Sri Lanka, the general opinion is that a resolution against Sri Lanka will not be helpful.
In March this year, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) had expressed much regret over the slow progress in establishing transitional justice mechanisms in Sri Lanka.
United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Kate Gilmore told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that the OHCHR welcomed the government’s constructive engagement with them regarding the human rights mechanisms, including its cooperation with the visit of its council’s Special Rapporteur on human rights and terrorism; on truth, justice, reparation, guarantees of non-recurrence, along with the visit of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.
Gilmore had said that in the absence of concrete results or publicly available drafts of legislation, it seemed doubtful that the transitional justice agenda committed to by the Government under resolution 30/1 could be fully implemented before the next report of OHCHR in March 2019.
The United States, which cosponsored the earlier resolutions on Sri Lanka in June, withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, dismissing it as a “cesspool of political bias” for its anti-Israel stance.