Volker Turk
The four-day visit of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR) Volker Türk to Sri Lanka was marked by deeply moving engagements with victims, civil society actors, and political leaders and has ignited renewed conversations around human rights, justice, and international accountability.
Türk’s remarks struck a delicate balance between optimism and realism.
He acknowledged what he called a “momentum of change” under the new Government, but also spotlighted Sri Lanka’s painful legacy of enforced disappearances, torture, and broken promises of accountability.
Yet, his visit must also be situated within a broader global crisis of confidence in the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Even as Türk advocated transitional justice for Sri Lanka, thousands of Palestinians have been killed by Israelis indiscriminately in Gaza with the support of powerful States such as the United States, exposing the limits of a rules-based international order.
The growing criticism of UNHRC lacking consistency and often exercising disproportionate scrutiny over weaker States while showing paralysis in confronting global hegemons poses a challenge to its credibility. It also raises the question of its importance and relevance to the world. It is fair to say that the UNHRC’s credibility has been compromised by double standards.
Sri Lanka’s tightrope
Türk’s tour across Sri Lanka from Colombo to Jaffna and Chemmani placed the spotlight on longstanding, unresolved grievances.
“The past haunts the lives of many in Sri Lanka,” he said poignantly after visiting the reopened mass grave in Chemmani.
He met mothers still searching for their loved ones three decades after the war, and added that “the tears of Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslims are the same.”
His language was one of compassion, but also urgency. He said that domestic accountability has repeatedly failed to deliver credible justice, pushing victims to seek recourse internationally.
Acknowledging this trust deficit, Türk reiterated the UN’s role: “My own Office has been mandated to gather and preserve information and analyse violations and abuses and has established a dedicated project for this purpose.” But, he also stressed that Sri Lanka’s path forward should be nationally owned and complemented by international support.
His comments mark a continuation of the UNHRC’s long-standing call for accountability and truth-telling in post-war Sri Lanka.
International pressure
While Türk praised President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s inclusive language and the reopening of cases including the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings, he was candid in pointing to systemic obstacles.
He called for the repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA), condemned ongoing surveillance of civil society actors, and flagged persistent complaints of torture and custodial deaths, despite PTA reform promises.
He also raised socio-economic grievances, highlighting that many Sri Lankans, especially plantation workers, were stripped of their basic rights during the 2022 crisis.
He invoked the concept of a “human rights economy,” stating, “It is important to enhance the understanding that economics and the way the economy works are informed by human rights obligations.”
In urging the Government to release military-held lands, amend discriminatory laws such as the Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act, and promote gender equality, Türk sketched out a roadmap not just for reconciliation, but structural transformation.
Still, many Sri Lankans question whether these international visits translate into real change—or if they only add to external pressure without genuine follow-through from the global community. While Türk’s engagement in Sri Lanka was widely welcomed, critical voices asked difficult but necessary questions.
At a media briefing where journalists were not given adequate opportunities for questions, journalists asked about the glaring inconsistency of international law where powerful States openly are backing Israel as it continues killing Palestinians, `including people waiting to collect aid in Gaza.
The question pierces the heart of a growing global disillusionment.
How can the UNHRC continue to demand accountability from countries such as Sri Lanka, while appearing impotent in the face of mass atrocities in Palestine?
Over 54,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 with many of them women and children. But a meaningful international action has yet been blocked at every turn, primarily due to U.S. and Western protection of Israel.
Türk responded with guarded empathy. “The credibility of international law is being undermined by shocking violations and weak and inconsistent advocacy by states,” he said.
He called for a ceasefire in Gaza, the release of hostages, and an end to militarised humanitarian aid. But his critics said this falls short.
The UN’s inability to halt Israel’s campaign of destruction, or to hold its Western backers accountable, weakens its moral authority to lecture smaller nations like Sri Lanka.
The UNHRC has consistently pressed Sri Lanka to investigate alleged war crimes and serious human rights violations, particularly those that occurred during the final stages of the civil war in 2009.
In multiple resolutions dating back to 2012, the Council has urged the Government to establish credible, independent mechanisms to hold perpetrators accountable, citing widespread allegations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and indiscriminate shelling in no-fire zones.
The UN’s 2011 Panel of Experts report and subsequent OHCHR investigations found reasonable grounds to believe that both Government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) committed grave violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
Despite Sri Lanka’s repeated pledges—especially under the 2015 Consensus Resolution (30/1)—to implement transitional justice mechanisms, including a Truth Commission and a special court with foreign judges, progress has remained elusive.
The UNHRC has noted the Government’s continued backtracking, including its 2020 withdrawal from co-sponsoring the resolution, which severely undermined trust among victims and international observers.
High Commissioner Volker Türk reiterated during his 2025 visit that Sri Lanka’s domestic mechanisms had failed to gain the confidence of victims, reinforcing the need for international involvement.
He said that “truth-telling, justice, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence” are essential for genuine reconciliation.
In addition to urging criminal investigations, the UNHRC has called for institutional reforms, including repealing draconian laws such as the PTA, ending military occupation of civilian land, and addressing systemic discrimination against minorities. The Council’s recommendations also include asset freezes and travel bans on those credibly implicated in past violations—steps that have drawn criticism from successive Sri Lankan administrations.
Nonetheless, the UNHRC continues to say that accountability for past crimes is not only a legal obligation but also a moral necessity to break cycles of impunity and rebuild trust in the rule of law.
Should Sri Lanka listen to the UNHRC?
This question, increasingly raised in Sri Lankan political circles, has a complicated answer. Türk attempted to address it through both personal and legal reasoning.
Coming from Austria—a small country—he said, “International law is the biggest trump card we have as a small State.” In other words, multilateralism is the only viable safeguard for smaller nations in an anarchic world system. While the system is flawed and imbalanced, it is still preferable to the law of the jungle. Yet scepticism remains strong.
Many Sri Lankans, across ethnic lines, feel that the UNHRC has disproportionately focused on their country while failing to act on the world’s most egregious crimes—from Yemen to Palestine to Ukraine.
Critics said that the UNHRC’s mechanisms have been selectively weaponised—with political motivation driving some resolutions, while silence greets others.
This selective justice erodes trust in the system and emboldens local political actors to dismiss UN reports as biased.
Without addressing these double standards, the UNHRC risks becoming a platform for symbolic diplomacy rather than meaningful accountability.
Recalibrated engagement
Despite the credibility crisis, Türk’s visit may still serve as a turning point—but only if both Sri Lanka and the UN system seize the opportunity.
For Sri Lanka, the challenge is to translate rhetoric into reform. For the UNHRC, the challenge is to regain moral high ground by acting with equal urgency across all geographies.
There are glimmers of hope. Türk praised the Government’s openness, the progress on reparations, and increased civil society space. He welcomed the tabling of a Bill to decriminalise same-sex relationships and acknowledged the electoral gains of women in Parliament.
These developments, while modest, are not insignificant in a country burdened by years of authoritarianism and war. But the path forward requires measurable benchmarks, transparent timelines, and institutional strengthening.
For example, the Government must clearly define reforms to its prosecutorial system, establish credible complaint mechanisms for police abuse, and stop using anti-terror laws against dissenters.
Without this, Türk’s visit risks joining a long list of high-profile but ineffectual interventions. Between hope and hard truths, Volker Türk’s Sri Lankan mission was a delicate act of diplomacy and moral suasion.
His sincerity, empathy, and depth of understanding were evident. His emphasis on inter-sectionality—combining civil, political, economic, and social rights—shows a more evolved rights framework. Yet the structural contradictions of the global human rights system remain unaddressed.
For Sri Lanka, this is an opportunity to forge a “new social contract,” as Türk said—one rooted in accountability, dignity, and pluralism. For the UNHRC, the challenge is far greater. It must confront not only authoritarian States, but its own inconsistencies.
Unless it demonstrates equal courage in confronting powerful violators—such as the U.S.-backed Israeli assault on Gaza—it cannot expect the rest of the world to believe in a fair, rules-based international order.
Sri Lanka may yet become a story of hope, as Türk said. But hope must be matched by action—at home, and in the halls of the UN.
