Good governance tests at multiple fronts
Sri Lanka's good governance test continued at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva over the week with the Core Group of examiners, viz., the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, as the invigilators, with Malawi, Montenegro and North Macedonia cynically thrown in as proof of broad-based concern, the clearest illustration of politicisation of the HRC.
Sri Lanka will clearly get no marks for cooperation with the HRC's Accountability Project established by the Core Group through the High Commissioner three years ago in Resolution 46/1. Sri Lanka has repeatedly highlighted this as an initiative whose sole purpose is to cater to the aspirations of a few residing primarily overseas, viz., the Sri Lankan diaspora, who are voters in the Core Group now, and that reconciliation processes must have domestic ownership. Minus the consent of the country concerned, the value of such initiatives for peace, stability, and reconciliation in Sri Lanka is zero. The Office of the High Commission of Human Rights (OHCHR) is reduced to what amounts to no less than open threats from the podium, urging other States to invoke universal jurisdiction and ‘targeted measures’ against Sri Lanka.
Nevertheless Sri Lanka needs to remain vigilant that in September—at the same time when elections are supposed to take place here—it will have to contend with Resolutions 46/1 and 51/1 against the country which will get a new lease as the Core Group will seek its extension. UK has in fact, recommended that Sri Lanka agree to a 'consensual resolution' like it did during the 20152019 Government, a clearly unrealistic demand particularly in an election year. Having forced an evidence gathering mechanism into the conduct of Sri Lanka's armed forces during the conflict that ended in 2009, this scrutiny has now morphed into a much wider socio-economic-political, all-embracing area.
The countries that came out to speak for Sri Lanka were few, but it was Pakistan and refreshingly Japan this time round, that came out forcefully. The Government has itself to blame for kicking the human rights ball into its own goal in these shifted posts. The formulation, and rushing through of bad laws like the Anti-Terrorism Act, the Online Safety Act, the Truth and Reconciliation Bill, and the Electronic Media Broadcasting Authority Bill have given a handle to the Core Group to whip Sri Lanka into shape. One might suggest that henceforth Sri Lanka gets its laws drafted and approved by Whitehall as was the case prior to 1948.
However, it is clear that the criticism against the Government, even if it comes from abroad, is justifiable because what they say is that the Government is not listening to its own voices at home. Hammering the double standards of the Core Group and the UNHRC is not an adequate strategy to ease its own difficulties on the world stage. The countries backing Sri Lanka remain few in Geneva. Japan and Pakistan came out forcefully in support.
India got a dose of its own medicine pontificating to its neighbours about the treatment of minorities, when the UNHRC chief referred to its own discrimination against minorities, especially the Muslims.
The regular good governance test in Geneva is in addition to the multiple parallel sweeping evaluations being performed on Sri Lanka , now both on the human rights front as well as on the economy through the IMF process and the Governance Diagnostic Assessment and on labour rights through the EU’s GSP+ process.