All systems go for Lanka’s UPR today

Thursday, 1 November 2012 01:07 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

By Dharisha Bastians

Ninety-nine Member States are set to speak at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today, when Sri Lanka’s case is taken up for Universal Periodic Review.

The UPR is a UNHRC mechanism to review the human rights records of all 192 UN member states once every four years.

Each country will be allocated one minute and 20 seconds to question Sri Lanka during the review, which will be overseen by a troika of nations chaired by India and including Spain and Benin. The 99 member states are expected to make at least 180 recommendations on Sri Lanka during the review. UN Human Rights Commissioner, Navi Pillay is also expected to make recommendations to Sri Lanka. The High Commissioner has already submitted her report on Sri Lanka to the UPR.

In 2008, when Sri Lanka’s record was last reviewed, 77 recommendations were made to improve the country’s human rights record, 52 of which the Government of Sri Lanka rejected, while accepting 25. Of these recommendations, Sri Lanka has fulfilled two in the past four years.

The United States which led a UNHRC resolution against Sri Lanka in March this year, has put forward a question in advance regarding the Government’s delays in holding Northern Provincial Council elections, an issue that both Washington and New Delhi hold to be of critical concern. In its question to Sri Lanka at the UPR the US asks what Colombo can do to move up the September 2013 deadline for the conducting of elections for the NPC.

The US has also inquired after the progress of the Witness Protection Bill the Government of Sri Lanka committed to during its review in 2008 and the investigations into the murder of 17 aid workers in Muttur, the assassination of Sunday Leader Editor Lasantha Wickrematunge and the disappearance of cartoonist Prageeth Ekneligoda.

Sri Lanka’s country report to the UPR comprises 14 pages on the end of the war with the LTTE, a single paragraph on a human rights action plan and five paragraphs on the President appointed truth commission on lessons learnt. The Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) forms the basis upon which a UNHRC Resolution on Sri Lanka was sponsored by the US and adopted in March this year, with the international community pushing for the implementation of the commission’s recommendations.

The first draft of Sri Lanka’s country report was prepared by Plantations Minister and Presidential Special Envoy on Human Rights Mahinda Samarasinghe. It was subsequently watered down and fine-tuned by the Ministry of External Affairs headed by Prof. G.L. Peiris.