Spotlight on Sri Lanka

<p><strong>Accountability and the Human Rights Council</strong></p> <p>Sri Lanka’s present is haunted by memories of the island’s decades-long civil war, which ended just over a decade ago. The war was mainly a clash between the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) insurgent group, the latter of which had hoped to establish a separate state for the Tamil minority. Although the Civil War ended in 2009, the current situation in Sri Lanka has only partially improved. A large portion of the Tamil population remains displaced. While there are fewer political and civil rights issues, instances of torture and enforced disappearances persist even in recent years. The Sri Lankan military still occupies predominantly Tamil areas designated as “high-security zones,” though to a lesser extent than during the war. The entrenched impunity for the deaths of tens of thousands of Tamil civilians in the final stages of the war in late 2008 and 2009 in what the United Nations called a “bloodbath”, remains unaccounted for.</p> <p>In January this year, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a damning report on the human rights situation in Sri Lanka. The report tracks Sri Lanka’s current, deteriorating human rights situation, identifying developments that “risk the recurrence of… the grave violations of the past.” In March, the <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/03/sri-lanka-landmark-un-resolution-marks-crucial-turning-point-on-justice-and-accountability/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank" title="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/03/sri-lanka-landmark-un-resolution-marks-crucial-turning-point-on-justice-and-accountability/"><u>HRC adopted a new resolution on Sri Lanka</u></a>, ramping up international monitoring and scrutiny of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka, and the new resolution also mandates the UN human rights office to collect, consolidate and preserve evidence for future prosecutions and make recomme