Baroness Kennedy of Cradley – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Kennedy of Cradley on 2016-10-13.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest assessment of the human rights situation in Sri Lanka.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
Since the election of President Sirisena in January 2015 the Sri Lankan Government has taken a number of positive steps to improve the human rights situation in the country. Although much remains to be done, it is clear that Sri Lanka is moving in the right direction.
We welcomed the historic co-sponsorship by Sri Lanka of Resolution 30/1 at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on 1 October 2015 committing it to reconciliation, accountability and the protection of human rights. Since then, the Sri Lankan Government has made encouraging progress against its commitments including the return of some military-held civilian land, the passing of legislation to establish an Office of Missing Persons and the ratification of the Convention on Enforced Disappearances.
We will continue to work with the UN, Sri Lanka and our other international partners to ensure full implementation of the UNHRC resolution, while recognising the scale of the challenge this represents and allowing time for credible, well thought out transitional justice mechanisms to be developed and implemented.
