Following the submission of the 6th State report of Sri Lanka to the UN Human Rights Committee (hereafter “the Committee”, monitoring body of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - ICCPR) in 2019, the Committee in July 2020 adopted the List of Issues (LOI) for the review of Sri Lanka, highlighting priority issues to be addressed. Originally, the 6th review of Sri Lanka was scheduled at the Committee’s 135th session in July 2022, which was postponed at the last minute to its 136th session in October 2022, and eventually postponed again to the 137th session to be conducted in March 2023. Several civil society organisations submitted their reports to the Committee by 30th May 2022, the deadline set for the original review scheduled at the 135th session. As the review is now taking place in 2023, the new deadline for civil society report is set as 30 January 2023.

4th UPR of Sri Lanka

The 4th Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Sri Lanka is carried out at the 42nd session of the UN UPR Working Group in January and February 2023. The so-called Pre-sessions was organised by the UPR-info as a preparation for the 42nd session including the 4th UPR of Sri Lanka on 30th November 2022. Several civil society representatives from Sri Lanka participated and presented issues such as disabilities, gender based violence, situation in the North and East and LGBTQI rights. CCPR Centre has assisted travel and participation of a Human Rights Defender from Sri Lanka in this process.

Facilitating more holistic utilisation of the UN Human Rights System

As these two reviews of Sri Lanka by UN bodies present significant opportunities for stakeholders to raise and address various human rights issues, in particular related to civil and political rights, the Centre has organised a 2-day consultation on 13 and 14 December 2022 with representatives of the civil society organisations who have submitted reports for these bodies and planning to engage in the process, with the objectives of:

• Deepen understanding among Sri Lankan civil society representatives of the coming review of Sri Lanka by UN bodies;
• Provide relevant and practical information about concrete advocacy activities and strategies; and
• Strengthen coordination, cooperation and dialogue amongst Sri Lankan civil society organisations to utilise international human rights mechanisms.