Sri Lanka's promise of deeper legal and institutional reform "appears to be stalling", the UN human rights office told the Human Rights Council in Geneva, as non-governmental organisations rejected its recommendations as deferral rather than accountability and demanded an independent international investigation into the genocide of Tamils.
The exchanges came on 8 September, during the general debate under agenda item two at the Council's 63rd session, at which the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights presented its written update on Sri Lanka pursuant to resolution 51/1.
'No progress towards accountability'
Presenting the update, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged some important steps towards investigation and prosecution in a few emblematic cases of alleged political killings and enforced disappearances, noting indictments filed last month over the 2006 murder of the Vice Chancellor of Eastern University, the arrest of a former intelligence chief, and the conviction of a former police chief and a senior defence official in connection with the Easter Sunday bombings.
The assessment that followed was considerably bleaker.
"However, the promise of deeper legal institutional reforms appears to be stalling," she said. "There has been no progress towards broader recognition and accountability for crimes under international law and gross violations committed by the state security forces or the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam during decades of armed conflict."
"There is continued intimidation of victims and witnesses and efforts to protect them are clearly inadequate. Even where serious violations have been well documented, many criminal investigations remain endlessly delayed."
The government has not fulfilled its commitment to establish an independent public prosecutor operating separately from the Attorney General's Department, she said. Meaningful security sector reform is still absent, with personnel suspected of serious violations continuing to operate within the military and police, and frequent reports of torture and deaths in custody.
On the Prevention of Terrorism Act, she said the government continues to rely on the repressive legislation, and that the draft law on the protection of the state from terrorism "retains many provisions that pose a risk to fundamental freedoms, including due process and fair trial guarantees and effective judicial oversight".
"Human rights defenders and victims still face surveillance and intimidation by state intelligence services, particularly in the northern and eastern Sri Lanka," she added, while a draft proposal on the registration and supervision of non-governmental organisations "raises serious concerns about disproportionate and overbroad executive powers".
Although several mass grave sites have been reopened, there is little public confidence in the Office on Missing Persons, which recently reported that it had resolved 32 cases while the fate and whereabouts of tens of thousands of disappeared people remain unknown. The government has also rejected the office's findings and recommendations on conflict-related sexual violence.
Noting that some 82 per cent of government revenue in the 2026 budget goes to interest and repayment of public loans, more than double the total spent on health, education and social protection, she said this was itself a crucial human rights issue. Those responsible for serious crimes must face prosecution, she said, "including through the application of extraterritorial or universal jurisdiction or other international avenues".
Responding, Sri Lanka restated that progress must be "nationally owned, nationally driven", reiterated its rejection of the OHCHR evidence-gathering mechanism, and later used the general debate to argue that country-specific mandates should carry sunset clauses and that "no council mandate should be regarded as indefinite".
Delivering the statement of the Sri Lanka Core Group , comprising Canada, Malawi, Montenegro, North Macedonia and the United Kingdom, the UK said much further action was needed to build confidence in accountability and reconciliation efforts.
"Mass grave excavations are a stark reminder that thousands of cases of enforced disappearances remain unresolved," it said. "And reports of intimidation, harassment, and restrictions affecting civil society, journalists and victims' groups, including in the North and East, still raise concerns."
The group urged progress on legal and institutional reforms, resolving land-related issues, respect for human rights in detention institutions and strengthening independent institutions. It did not name Chemmani or call for international oversight of the investigation.
A succession of states used the debate to urge the Council to ease its scrutiny of Colombo.
Japan said it welcomed Sri Lanka's efforts and "strongly hope[d] that Sri Lanka will continue its efforts, notably those to promote accountability and national reconciliation through domestic mechanisms".
Eritrea went further, saying Sri Lanka "should be supported in these efforts without imposing further political measures or unjustified country specific mandates", adding that "states cannot be placed on a trajectory defined by Western countries seeking to advance these agendas".
South Sudan said Sri Lanka "should be encouraged and supported on its effort to achieving long term reconciliation through nationally owned process". Türkiye said it recognised "the significant reforms by Sri Lanka". The Maldives recognised "the progress made by Sri Lanka in advancing national reconciliation". Bangladesh expressed solidarity with the people of Sri Lanka and took note of its efforts on truth and reconciliation.
China listed Sri Lanka among countries whose internal affairs others should stop interfering in, saying states "should respect the human rights development path chosen independently by all countries". Belarus said it was "unacceptable to exploit the human rights agenda as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of Belarus, China, Venezuela, Iran, DPRK, Sri Lanka and other states".
North Macedonia , a Core Group member speaking nationally, welcomed positive developments while encouraging further efforts on accountability, saying reports of intimidation and restrictions affecting civil society, journalists and victims' groups "remain concerning". The Dominican Republic listed Sri Lanka among contexts requiring attention.
'Victims have been offered this before'
Non-governmental organisations addressed the Council in numbers, several rejecting the report's central recommendations outright.
Etudiants pour une societé durable Paris told the Council that the report's two central recommendations "cannot carry the weight placed on them". On recommendation 62(i), inviting Sri Lanka to consider a special judicial mechanism, it said: "Victims have been offered this before. Commissions of Inquiry, the LLRC, a hybrid court promised and repudiated, and an Office on Missing Persons that has not clarified the fate of a single enforced disappeared person to date. Another domestic mechanism is not accountability, it is deferral."
On recommendation 62(k), urging accession to the Rome Statute, it said accession could not address crimes committed before July 2002 and that "that accountability gap requires a special international tribunal". Mass graves like Chemmani demonstrated why, it said, with almost 600 sets of human remains including children and infants recovered. "Yet this report does not once use the words genocide or intent."
A joint statement by Association Pour la Diffusion des Droits de L'homme dans L'université De Lyon said the report documented militarisation, surveillance, land seizures and the suppression of memorialisation, but "falls far short of naming the reality our people live, an ongoing genocide against the Eelam Tamil nation". The occupation persists, it said, "through military held lands in Valikamam, Keppapilavu and across the North-East, through desecration and appropriation of Hindu sites, through Sinhalisation of demography and place, through surveillance, intimidation, and reprisals against survivors, mothers of the disappeared and memorial gatherings".
"These are not isolated abuses," it continued. "They are the continuation of a genocidal process aimed at erasing Eelam Tamils as a people, our land, language, and identity."
The Association Humanitaire Franco-Sri Lanka said the discovery of skeletal remains at Chemmani-Siththupaththi "is not an isolated tragedy" but "physical evidence of a sustained campaign to destroy the Eelam Tamil nation in whole or in part. We call this what it is: genocide." It urged referral to the International Criminal Court, a country-specific special rapporteur, an internationalised Office on Missing Persons with independent investigative authority "free of executive interference", and excavations conducted under the Minnesota Protocol with full international forensic oversight.
A further joint statement, delivered by Association Thendral , said the report confirmed what communities had said for years: "land seized by the military remains unreturned", Hindu religious sites face encroachment including proposed military installations at Thirukoneswaram, and "human rights defenders, especially women, are routinely intimidated by CID and TID officers for engaging with UN mechanisms". Domestic mechanisms "have failed and will continue to fail without independent international oversight", it said.
People for Equality and Relief in Lanka said Tamil victims and families of the disappeared had demanded an independent international accountability mechanism for over a decade, and that such a mechanism "is essential to breaking Sri Lanka's systemic cycle of impunity". There had been no meaningful justice nor accountability for "the war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed against the Eelam Tamils, while up to 169,796 Tamils remain unaccounted for and presumed dead".
"The Sri Lankan government demonstrates zero political will to deliver genuine justice, instead establishing ineffective domestic mechanisms," it said, "while Tamils continue to face the militarization and Sinhalization of their homeland, harassment and intimidation from security forces, restrictions on memorialization, and continued use of draconian laws and proposed legislation such as the Prevention of Terrorism Act and NGO bill."
The discovery of nearly 600 sets of human remains at Chemmani, now the largest mass grave on the island, "further demonstrates the urgent need for an independent, international mechanism that can protect evidence and conduct a credible investigation with the faith of Tamils in the North-East and abroad. The families have waited for answers long enough."
It urged member states to pursue accountability through universal jurisdiction and other international legal avenues including the ICC and ICJ while investigating the Tamil genocide, adding that "the political rights of Eelam Tamils, including their right to self-determination, must also be addressed to prevent recurrence. Without justice, accountability, and the recognition of Eelam Tamils' right to self-determination, the island's crisis will persist."
Interfaith International recalled that in 1996 it had reported the dumping of bodies at Chemmani to UN forums alongside the Tamil Centre for Human Rights, and that Sri Lanka, ranked second to Iraq for disappearances in the late 1990s, "now has the highest number of disappearances in the world". It asked whether members of the Council found any difference between the genocide in the North-East, at Mullivaikkal and Chemmani, and the Srebrenica genocide, "the culprits of which were indicted by the ICC, sentenced to long term imprisonment, and the victims received a durable solution".
'None of the remains have been identified'
Amnesty International said that following the prison clashes in July, family members were not notified of the whereabouts of transferred prisoners for weeks, "an alarming sign of the resumption of enforced disappearances in Sri Lanka". Enforced disappearances "continue to be a defining feature of impunity", it said, "with tens of thousands of families still waiting for truth and justice". The excavations at Chemmani, where remains corresponding to more than 583 individuals including children have been recovered, "further underscore the urgent need for credible, independent and scientifically rigorous investigations". It called on member states to support the OHCHR Sri Lanka Accountability Project and asked OHCHR to present clear benchmarks to measure progress.
Human Rights Watch said its latest report found "systematic impunity for grave international crimes and ongoing threats and surveillance by security agencies of victims and activists who campaign for justice".
"The mass grave at Chemmani has been excavated, yet none of the remains have been identified," it said. "In most other cases, there has been no progress at all, nor has the government fulfilled promises to repeal abusive legislation or establish an independent prosecutor."
Lawyers' Rights Watch Canada and the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute , in a statement delivered by Harini Sivalingam, said the OHCHR report "demonstrates the continued lack of meaningful progress toward justice and accountability for the survivors of atrocity crimes committed in Sri Lanka".
"The ongoing excavation of the Chemmani mass grave site underscores the urgency for credible investigations and accountability," they said. "To date 583 skeletal remains have been uncovered, including those of infants and children."
They recalled that during his visit to the site in June 2025 the High Commissioner emphasised the need for transparent and robust investigations by independent forensic experts, and that international human rights organisations have urged Sri Lanka to comply with the Minnesota Protocol, involve independent international forensic observers and ensure a victim-centred excavation process. Yet the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka "has documented continued surveillance, intimidation and harassment of human rights defenders and family members monitoring the excavation".
"We deplore Sri Lanka's lack of demonstrable commitment to justice despite the Accountability Project and other Council resolutions," they said, calling on the Council to urge Colombo to cooperate fully with the project and facilitate the collection and preservation of evidence "for potential criminal proceedings before domestic, foreign, or international courts".
The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development said the National People's Power government "came to office with considerable hope and expectation of a genuine break from the cycles of impunity and repression. Yet two years on, there has been little meaningful progress on accountability." Apart from limited progress in a few emblematic cases, it said, there had been none on enforced disappearances, the killing of aid workers, or attacks against journalists. It urged the government to withdraw the proposed NGO bill "entirely", saying that rather than protecting independent civil society "it will expand state control of NGOs".
The PEARL delegation and other Tamil advocacy groups thanked the staff of the Sri Lanka Accountability Project, noting that the international role in domestic accountability mandated under resolution 30/1, and agreed to by Sri Lanka, had never been established. Sri Lanka "is incapable of prosecuting crimes by itself through purely domestic mechanisms", one said, urging states to begin prosecutions under universal jurisdiction in the coming year.
Stichting Global Human Rights Defence said the current report "does not reflect the High Commissioner's previous leadership in advancing accountability", and that accountability for alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide "appears to have been deprioritised". It said the Accountability Project has preserved more than 123,000 items of information originating from over 500 witnesses and sources.
Easter Sunday, prisons and drug policy
VIVAT International said key reports on the 2019 Easter Sunday attacks remain only partially disclosed, "hindering truth, accountability and justice". A parliamentary committee had revealed that the counter-terrorism division did not send complete files on Zahran Hashim to the Attorney General's Department, they said, while the Presidential Commission and Select Committee found that military intelligence monitored the bombers and that security forces engaged certain high-level members of the group as informants. They urged the government to publish the full findings of all investigative commissions.
Franciscans International and the Centre for Society and Religion, in a statement delivered by Sister Mary Shia Aman, a Good Shepherd sister and human rights defender advocating for the victims, said the reports suggested the attack "was not merely an act by Zahran Hashim's group, but that it has characteristics of an organised conspiracy that goes beyond that". They urged effective protection for "victims, witnesses, investigators, human rights defenders and others who face risks for seeking truth, justice and accountability".
Harm Reduction International expressed "disappointment and concern about the current government's continuation of the regressive drug control policies and actions of previous governments", saying continuing arrests of people who use drugs had resulted in prison overcrowding and violence at Negombo and Mahara. Compulsory drug treatment centres, "some of which are managed by the Sri Lankan military", had seen documented "physical and psychological violence, inhuman conditions of detention and lack of evidence based treatment". It urged the government to "abide by a zero tolerance policy on torture, investigate all deaths in custody, and ensure those found responsible are held accountable".
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