Ms Louise Arbour, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, was in Sri Lanka at the invitation of the Government from October 9-13, 2007. In addition to government officials, independent state institutions and international bodies, Ms Arbour also met with several government and opposition political parties and representatives of civil society.

At the conclusion of her visit, Ms Arbour held a joint press conference with the Minister of Disaster Management and Human Rights, Mahinda Samarasinghe, where the Minister made it clear that demands by some groups for a UN monitoring mission or office of the High Commissioner in Sri Lanka were unwarranted and unacceptable. He noted that already the High Commissioner had two officers in Sri Lanka working with the UN Country Team. He said that depending on the level of technical cooperation that would be made available, further personnel needs to implement projects could be discussed. The Minister also said that despite the very complex situation in Sri Lanka, in the context of an ongoing struggle against terrorism, the Government, by inviting Ms Arbour to visit Sri Lanka, has demonstrated its commitment and willingness to work with the international community in an open and transparent manner to promote human rights of all its citizens.

Professor G.L. Peiris, Sri Lanka’s Minister of Export Development and International Trade, who was the Sri Lankan government’s former chief peace negotiator with the LTTE, since signing the ceasefire agreement in February 2002, analyzes the situation in retrospect, in the October 28th issue of a local weekly newspaper ‘Lakbima,’ “The visit of Louise Arbour, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, has served as the impetus for a vigorous debate on many important issues relating to human rights, security, accountability and the respective roles of national government and the international community, the substance of the debate transcends the particular circumstances of the Sri Lankan situation.”

He traces back events of the recent past in Sri Lanka. He said that during the last few months, Sri Lanka has been visited by many high ranking officials of the United Nations system, such as, Canada’s Ambassador to the UN Alan Rock (who visited Sri Lanka as the representative of Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict), Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs at the UN, John Holmes, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Prof. Philip Alston, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Novak and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour. Said Prof. Peiris, “These visits naturally have been a catalyst for the expression of a wide range of views. As the hallmark of a vibrant democratic society, this is unreservedly welcome. However, in the midst of increasing polarization and an emotive approach to issues, clarity of definition and content in respect of the underlying issues is essential.”

Prof. Peiris then focuses attention on one of the foremost human rights institutions in the world, the Human Rights Council in Geneva. “In the international architecture of human rights today, the Human Rights Council in Geneva is a pre-eminent institution. The insights of the international community, responding to the priorities of our time, are clearly reflected in the origins of the Human Rights Council. The life of this pivotal body began with the celebrated Resolution 60/251 adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 15th March 2006 [60th session, agenda items 46 and 120].”

Prof. Peiris emphasizes the operative paragraph 5[a] of the resolution, which declares that “The council shall promote human rights education and learning as well as advisory services, technical assistance and capacity building, to be provided in consultation with and with the consent of Member States concerned.” Says Prof. Peiris, “The qualifying phrase puts beyond a doubt the intention of the General Assembly that the will of the receiving state is a dominant consideration. There is no room for coercive or compulsory intervention, in terms of this instrument. This is reinforced by the explicit statement, in the preambular sections of the resolutions, that the ‘The promotion and protection of human rights should be based on the principles of co-operation and the genuine dialogue and aimed at strengthening the capacity of Member States’.”

According to Prof. Peiris, “The rationale of this principle is self-evident. Collaboration in the context of a mutually supportive relationship, based on empathy and understanding, is a condition precedent for accomplishment of the desired results on the ground. Nothing can be destructive of the professed aims and objectives as the spirit of confrontation deriving from adversarial or combative attitudes to sovereign states.”

Prof. Peiris reminds the reader that the predecessor of the current Human Rights Council was the the Commission of Human Rights, with particular reference to the work of the office of the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, as decided by the General Assembly in its resolution 48/141 of 20th December 1993. As Prof. Peiris says, this change happened because of a fundamental change that occurred in respect of the international community’s conception of the content and scope of the functions of the Human Rights Council in the contemporary world – that it wanted a more effective institution.

Referring to General Assembly records, 60/251, Prof. Peiris says, “Paragraph 1 makes it clear that the Human Rights Council as a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly derives its authority directly from the latter. Paragraph7 fixes the number of members of the Human Rights Council at 47. The overwhelming majority of members of the General Assembly considered this number not unwieldy. A small minority dissented on the ground that the stipulated number, being excessive, was an impediment to effective action.”

As a second point, Prof. Peiris says, “It signifies the reaction of judgmental postures, because they were as arrogant and insensitive, and strikingly out of harmony with the mood and culture of the modern world. The need of the hour is that the institutions of the UN should be encouraged, in keeping with their structures, to reach out to governments to engage them in the search for solutions to complex problems rooted in the circumstances of their own domestic situations.”

Analyzing Ms Arbor’s visit to Sri Lanka, Prof. Peiris says, “Ms Louise Arbour, it seems to me, was certainly right in recommending a closer examination of the relationship between the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the mechanisms in place in Sri Lanka. It is not as though her office has no role or influence at all in our country today: on the contrary, her office and more generally, the United Nations system are engaged in a variety of beneficial activities in Sri Lanka at this time.”

Prof. Peiris ends his article with an interesting allusion to the focus of the Human Rights Council, “The nature and scope of these activities legitimately call for imaginative scrutiny from time to time. Some elements may need to be strengthened or expanded, others modified in light of changing circumstances, and yet others perhaps phased out because they have grown obsolete. Technical assistance and capacity building, as contemplated by paragraph 5[a] of the enabling Resolution, are admittedly mattes of high priority in relation to many aspects of the system of criminal justice during a turbulent period. However, it cannot be emphasized too strongly that this whole range of matters requires a consensual mode of treatment, involving sustained engagement with the Government of Sri Lanka. An aggressively intrusive or interventionist approach, anchored in nothing more than vague and subjective criteria, is wholly indefensible either in terms of the applicable legal instruments or on the basis of realistic concepts of public policy.”

Prof. Peiris clearly makes the point that “an aggressively intrusive or interventionist approach” that some sections of the international community are taking on human rights issues in Sri Lanka is totally counterproductive and not in keeping with the accepted international norm of a ‘consensual form of treatment’ involving sustained engagement with the government concerned.

What nail the final bolt of this perspective, are the words of Anton Balasingham, the chief political strategist and chief negotiator of the LTTE, during the peace talks in Hakone, Japan in February 2003. Responding to a presentation made by Mr. Ian Martin, International Human Rights Advisor to Sri Lanka’s Peace Process, on a conceptual road map on addressing human rights issues involving international participation, Mr. Balasingham said that Sri Lanka does not need any external mechanism to monitor human rights issues, and that the existing national Human Rights Commission was sufficient to handle the tasks. This was the position taken by the LTTE in 2003.