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The International Law Commission (ILC) rejected Sri Lanka's nomination, Mohan Peiris, following a campaign calling on the UN General Assembly (UNGA) to turn down his nomination.
'Reject Mohan Peiris'
#RejectHarryRoque #RejectMohanPeiris
— iDEFEND (@iDEFENDhr) November 11, 2021
ACCOUNTABILITY, NOT THE ILC https://t.co/e5R9nJbLBO
The International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP) called on the UNGA to refuse the nomination of Mohan Peiris to the ILC.
In an online event this week, Yasmin Sooka, the International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP)'s Executive Director, Yasmin Sooka, criticised Sri Lanka’s nomination of Mohan Peiris to the commission ahead of the election which took place yesterday.
Mohan Peiris, Sri Lanka’s current permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, served as Attorney General from 2008 to 2011. He was also the chief legal advisor to then President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, and to all departments and ministries of the government, including the state security forces and the police.
In the final phase of the armed conflict, Sri Lanka launched a massive military offensive which saw the killing of tens of thousands of civilians, repeated shelling of hospitals, widespread sexual violence, torture and the execution of surrendering Tamils.
“In that capacity, he [Peiris] had the power and responsibility to direct and advise police investigations and also to properly prepare cases for indictment and prosecution,” Ms Sooka highlighted.
“And as Attorney General, it was expected that he would independently and credibly investigate the multiple allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity that were reported at the time,” she added.
“I would argue that the commission should refuse to accept a nomination from Sri Lanka because it has reneged on its own domestic and international law obligations to deal with accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity that were perpetrated at the end of the war in 2009, as well as of course, the ongoing violations,” Ms Sooka said.
Following the end of the armed conflict, the Sri Lankan government set up a “rehabilitation” programme for former Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) cadres. Ms Sooka noted that at the time, the International Commission for Jurists (ICJ) criticised Peiris for “failing to address legal shortcomings in the government’s rehabilitation programme for thousands of ex combatants” and said it was “operating in a legal vacuum”.
In a press release released earlier this year, the ITJP and Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) noted that the ICJ raised a serious of human rights concerns regarding the government's legal framework for the "rehabilitation" centres which Peiris drafted.
The concerns include the "mandatory and involuntary nature of rehabilitation, which involved the deprivation of liberty of the ‘rehabilitee’ and which the ICJ said would amount to individual and collective punishment without criminal conviction; the denial of the right to challenge the detention and rehabilitation; and the duration of up to two years’ detention without charge or trial or access to legal representation."
“When we appoint someone from a state that is not compliant with its own domestic and international obligations, doesn’t it make a mockery of such an esteemed body and would it not reward Sri Lanka which in itself would be a problem,” she questioned.
See a full press release by ITJP and JDS here.