Sri Lanka urged to implement UN recommendations

Sri Lanka has been urged to implement recommendations put forward by UN mandate-holders.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, says although the Government has regrettably rejected aspects of the Council’s resolutions related to accountability, it has continued to engage with our presence on the ground.

“Sri Lanka has received a dozen visits by mandate-holders in the past decade, and I encourage the authorities to implement their recommendations,” Volker Türk said.

He expressed these views while addressing the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today.

In his global update, Volker Türk said that when the first Secretary-General of the United Nations, Trygve Lie, laid the cornerstone of the New York building that was to house the United Nations, it contained a copy of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

“Since then, States have established an ecosystem of international human rights bodies to assist them to advance this work. Among them, the ten treaty bodies; this Human Rights Council, with its Universal Periodic Review, investigations and Special Procedures experts; and my Office,” Türk said.

He said the world is now at a crucial juncture, 75 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and 30 years after the Vienna Declaration – against the backddrop of flaring conflicts, the Sustainable Development Agenda dangerously off-track, and environmental harm threatening humanity.

Türk said that international cooperation is vital, so that human rights can be advanced.

He also noted that attacks on people for their cooperation with the UN are a particularly insidious form of non-cooperation, and can have a chilling effect across the civic space. (Colombo Gazette)