Geneva Report, favourable or dangerous?

The 2017 HRC report comprises 18 pages, written in complex linguistics, the contextual elaboration of which is possible, not with “sweet and short” principle, but, on the basis of width and depth. The “sweet and short” approach, many admire to enjoy, would seed the reader in depthless shallowness and hence, the beautiful possibility of a right knowledge will be open to broad day-light distortion.

Herein what is required is not the superficiality of shallowness, but an in-depth knowledge, which would be conducive to be resolute, resourceful and take drastic action to assist the Government to sort out the issue and quash baseless allegations of blemish. Hence, it was decided to convey this crucial knowledge in several parts, so that the publisher was at ease and the reader felt relatively comfortable.

UN Human Rights Council has submitted its APR report on Sri Lanka, dated February 10, 2017, at its 34th session, held from February 27th- March 24 2017. The report writes that it constitutes two parts: (1) Annual report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (2) Reports of the Office of High Commissioner and Secretary General. The real contents of the 2017 HRC report, produced and furnished by Zaid Al Hussein, in this twenty first century, sometimes addressed as a prince, is a central context, all the Sri Lankans must understand, know, analyze and realize.

Yet, it is very unfortunate that among those, who are tasked in to responsibility for the job, reveal and explain the report contents extremely sporadically or for the most part, plead silence, helping the public to sink into dark depth of ignorance. Yet others impatiently endeavour, not only to use, but also to abuse it, in order to gain some political mileage, in their marathon to power capture.

Thus, by reason of the above intentional or ignorant or sheer negligent attitude, the present writer, as an International Lawyer, decided to communicate the truth of the central contents of Geneva HRC report, so that the people of Sri Lanka knew it and could make relevant and voluntary conclusions, as the case would arise, in the years to come. Besides, the report analysis would grant the general public, the required materials of analytical comparison, which can be set against the modus operandi professionalism of our Department of Diplomacy and know whether the Sri Lanka diplomatic expertise was victorious or has failed.

Report Inter-Nexus

A focused glance across the text of the report shows that it, the HRC report, is not an isolated document. It is a result of series of such reports, stemmed from 30/1 resolution, couple of oral updates, conclusions of OHCHR investigations and progress assessments of its recommendations implementation by the Government of Sri Lanka in relation to the accountability, reconciliation and human rights protection. It also involves the conclusions, made by high ranking officers of the HRC subsequent to following visits: (a) Visit of the High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 6-10 February 2016 (b) Visit of Deputy High Commissioner to Sri Lanka from 1-4 September 2016 (c) Visit of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in November 2015 (d) Mission of special rapporteur on Truth, Justice and Reparation and Guarantees of Non-recurrence in March 2015 (e) Recommendations of the Special Rapporteur, after the regional consultations on transitional justice for the Asia Pacific Region, held in September 2016 (f) Visit of Special Rapporteur on Torture and other inhuman, cruel and degrading Treatment or Punishment from April 29 – May 7 2016 (g) Visit of Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers from April 29 – May 7 2016 (h) Visit of Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues from October 10 – 20 2016 (i) Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination(CERD/C/LKA/CO/10-17) (j) Report of the Committee on the Protection of Rights of all migrant Workers and Members of their Families(CMW/C/LKA/CO/2 and (k) Report of the Committee against Torture(CAT/C/LKA/CO/5).

The above report-inter-connectivity demonstrates, how serious the HRC resolution is, what subject versatility it is rooted in, what danger it may impact on Sri Lanka, in case of the non-implementation of its recommendations, the diplomatico-doctrinal depth, the Sri Lankan Diplomacy experts must possess, the threat of the appointment of political cronies and ones, uneducated and unprofessional in science of Diplomacy, the dire need of timely action, the flaming need of the presence of an inter-related, inter-acting and inter-augmenting strategies, designed by best and tested diplomatic brains of Sri Lanka and indeed, the danger of bifurcated party politics of loss and the profit of united efforts sans clandestine designs to deceive the political rival and capture power.

Fundamental HRC trait

Generally, UN Bodies, Human Rights Council included, formulate and convey recommendations to States. The exception constitutes the Article 25 of the UN Charter, which writes: “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter”. Thus, for any HRC recommendation to become obligatory, it has to be functionally promoted to be operative as a UN Security Council decision. It, ultimately, is the responsible Sate actor, who will have to implement the HRC recommendation.

Notwithstanding the above, it is an open secret that external pressure and expert guidance sometimes is required for States to act in accordance with their human rights obligations. Then, the non-binding nature of HRC recommendations and lack of an international enforcement mechanism is a fundamental HRC mandate feature, the people of Sri Lanka must know, in their understanding the contents of Geneva report. The threat lies when the HRC recommendation is upgraded unto UN Security Council decision. That is only one aspect.

Knowledge acquisition methodology

UNHRC report contains a serious content, retaining in itself, recommendations for implementation within the jurisdiction of Sri Lanka. It deals with war crimes, so-called human rights violation records, infraction of International law, reconciliation, accountability, establishment of hybrid court with the participation of jurists from other countries and many more. Hence, the concerns are truly grave and the report-suggested recommendations implementation may work either way. Thus, the people of Sri Lanka must know, not only its contents, but also the way and the direction, the intensity and the degree, the recommendations implementation would impact our motherland, its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, demographic balance and many other aspects.

The identification methodology also helps the HRC report content learner, to cognize same rightly and simultaneously, it requires the reader to explore the report totally impartially, with no party bias, no ethnic orientation and with no religious sentiments, which may distort the purity of right understanding. That is firstly. The second is, the content context seeker must know, couple of international jurisprudential principles, with the embodiment of which, the HRC establishment act was incorporated in to International Law – (1) Peaceful co-existence with differing governance structures (2) The observation of the principle of Government Sovereignty (3) Respect and protection of the existing territorial integrity of UN member States (4) Observation of the International Law principle of non-interference in to the affairs of other states. Thus, the report explorer must analyze and realize its contents, with the international jurisprudential wealth mentioned above. The opposite would misinterpret the whole affair.

Thirdly, the content reader should be well aware of the fact that HRC recommendations are not mandatory for any country until there is a co-signed agreement between the HRC and the Government concerned and the same must be domesticated in order to incorporate the agreement content in to indigenous law. Thus, the general public of Sri Lanka in learning the report, should pay their attention to the fact whether such domestically content-binding agreement has been co-signed between the HRC and the Government of Sri Lanka or not.

Fourthly, the People of Sri Lanka must know the professionalism and the expertise of the diplomacy team, tasked to sort-out the complexity.  This is very crucial, since, in some countries, there is an opportunistic propensity of selfish politics, to appoint political cronies, those, who are uneducated businessmen and those who are not educationally qualified in the intricate science of diplomacy, as diplomats, who can render no service to diplomatico-internationally profit the country. Thus, if something goes wrong, the public can take decisions in the need of the right hour.

Fifthly, in an international perplexity of this nature, a country must act with a unified policy programme of diplomacy. This is more so, in the extant Sri Lankan context of national Government. The President is from SLFP. The Prime Minister comes from UNP. The Cabinet ministers are from both. The official minority opposition demands the involvement of international element and a hybrid court. The unofficial majority opposition rejects the hybrid court.

When the President asserts something, the statement of the Prime Minister must be in concordance with it. Then, the Minister of Foreign Affairs should not contradict both. Thus, in a concatenation of such perplexed circumstances, the sense of urgency for a unified programme of Sri Lankan diplomacy arises and rises higher and higher as never before. Sixthly, the public must be well aware of the HRC recommendations, their nature and context, what they are directed upon, to attack what domains they have been designed for, among the HRC recommendations, what has already been galvanized in to action, the empirical impact of the recommendations implementation and also if there are any recommendation, not implemented by the Government and why it was not executed. This conscious process of rational pondering would enlighten people the negative effectivity of the recommendations implementation and the positive impact of their non-implementation.

Seventhly, digesting the HRC report contents, the people of Sri Lanka, must glance in to the presence of Government encouragement, in space allocation promotion for those, who would have supported the actual cause and whose revelations could have made a convincing contribution to disprove the baseless allegations, if any, leveled against the Government of Sri Lanka. Why? If this is not done, it shows the lack of commitment on the part of those, who are responsible.

Eighthly, the HRC report is so significant that the people must know it, not in scattered parts here and there, but, as a whole, fully knowing the exact number of content components. It has 6 Paras, 12 Sub-Paras and 71 descriptive items.