Search Results for: sri lanka

Pitasanna Shanmugathas is a third-year student at the University of Windsor Faculty of Law. He has been actively following developments in this discrimination case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. A Canadian Human Rights Tribunal member ruled last week that the government cannot invoke national security laws to indefinitely delay discrimination complaints. The Tribunal decision [...]

A year after the leftist National People’s Power (NPP) coalition won an unprecedented supermajority in Sri Lanka’s November 2024 parliamentary elections—with support from both the majority Sinhala and minority Tamil communities—it has fallen short in terms of delivering on its sweeping promises. As the first party to govern Sri Lanka outside the two-party system, the [...]

JURIST’s Sarisha Harikrishna interviews Professor Dr. John D. Ciorciari, Dean of the Hamilton Lugar School at Indiana University Bloomington on the practical challenges of prosecuting genocide and war crimes in Asia. While international courts have established legal frameworks for addressing mass atrocities, their application in Asia faces distinct obstacles shaped by regional politics and diplomatic [...]

The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) developed a detailed reparations claim in collaboration with the Valvettithurai Citizens’ Committee to the Sri Lankan Office for Reparations, seeking USD $15 million (LKR 4.5 billion) for victims of a 1989 massacre in the Jaffna peninsula, on Friday, where at least 66 civilians were killed and 34 injured [...]

International human and civil rights groups on Monday urged the UN Human Rights Council to maintain its oversight of the situation in Sri Lanka. The appeal comes ahead of the council’s 60th session, where member states’ compliance with international human rights treaties is to be reviewed. Amnesty International, together with the Asian Forum for Human [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wednesday that despite promises of reform, Sri Lankan security forces continue to harass the families of enforced disappearance victims, using the country’s counterterrorism laws to stifle justice and accountability. In its statement, the humanitarian organization highlighted that President Dissanayake’s administration, nearly a year into power, has done little to change [...]

Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed concern on Friday over accusations of human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, stating that a recent report by the UN Human Rights Office highlights the need for accountability. HRW specifically urged the UN Human Rights Council to take action to protect human rights in the country, including by supporting the [...]

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) on Tuesday called upon the Sri Lankan authorities to put an immediate end to what it called the government’s harassment of photojournalist Kanapathipillai Kumanan, after a police notice obtained by the organization revealed that Kumanan had been summoned by the counter-terrorism police for questioning. The summons comes in the [...]

On July 29, 1999, Dr. Neelan Tiruchelvam, a distinguished Sri Lankan Tamil constitutional lawyer, academic, and parliamentarian, was assassinated by the Tamil separatist rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). His killing was in retaliation for his efforts to resolve Sri Lanka’s decades-long ethnic conflict through democratic, power-sharing constitutional reforms within a united [...]

In a shocking discovery that has sent ripples across the international community, ongoing excavations at a mass grave site in Chemmani, in northern Sri Lanka, have uncovered more than 100 skeletal remains, including those of children and infants. The grim findings at Chemmani have reignited global attention on one of the world’s most severe cases [...]