Sugeeshwara Gunaratna with Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace
Sugeeshwara Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan diplomat who has defended successive governments' human rights record at the UN and warned that universal jurisdiction could "disrupt the quest for peace and national reconciliation", has presented his credentials as ambassador to the French president Emmanuel Macron.
Gunaratna presented his letters of credence at the Élysée Palace on Monday, conveying the greetings of the Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Colombo's interest in broadening engagement with France on political, economic and trade relations, maritime and cultural cooperation and multilateral forums. Macron reaffirmed France's commitment to strengthening bilateral relations.
A career diplomat, Gunaratna took up his post in Paris in July as ambassador-designate and Sri Lanka's permanent delegate to UNESCO. He previously served as ambassador to Ethiopia, deputy permanent representative to the UN in New York and deputy high commissioner in London. Before arriving in Paris, he co-chaired political consultations with France in June that covered maritime and defence cooperation.
In June 2011, two years after the Mullivaikkal genocide, Gunaratna told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that the Sri Lankan government had rehabilitated and reintegrated former LTTE combatants. "All female ex-combatants who were beneficiaries of this program have now been released and are back with their families," he said .
At the time, former cadres released from rehabilitation camps, which were notorious for torture, rape and enforced disappearances, were kept under military surveillance , with some required to report regularly to the Sri Lankan army.
In October 2014, as a director at the Ministry of External Affairs, he was part of the government delegation that defended Sri Lanka's record before the UN Human Rights Committee, which questioned Colombo over torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances. The delegation's head, Ravinatha Aryasinha, argued, according to the mission’s own account, that Sri Lanka should be judged in proportion to the challenges of a country emerging from what it called a 30-year terrorist conflict.
In October 2022, as deputy permanent representative in New York, Gunaratna delivered Sri Lanka's statement on universal jurisdiction to the UN General Assembly's Sixth Committee. While acknowledging that it "holds out the promise of greater justice", he warned that improper exercises of jurisdiction "may be used merely to harass political opponents".
"The imprudent or untimely exercise of universal jurisdiction could disrupt the quest for peace and national reconciliation," he said .
Tamil groups and UN human rights officials have called on states to use universal jurisdiction to prosecute Sri Lankan officials accused of war crimes, while Colombo has sought to shield its military from prosecutions abroad.
File photograph: Anura Kumara Dissanayake and Emmanuel Macron
In May 2025, as director general for Europe and North America, Gunaratna led Sri Lanka's delegation to the EU–Sri Lanka Working Group on Governance, Rule of Law and Human Rights, where Sri Lanka " confirmed the commitment to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act " and briefed the EU on plans to replace it. The EU recalled that Sri Lanka needed to bring its laws in line with international human rights conventions to keep access to the European market through GSP+.
Dissanayake has sought Macron's support to retain the trade concessions, which the EU has extended despite Sri Lanka's failure to repeal the PTA . The government presented the PTA's proposed replacement to parliament on Tuesday amid warnings from rights groups that it retains the old law's abusive powers.
In 2021, 21 French MPs called on Macron to use all his influence to end the persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
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