Double standards in Geneva: Sri Lanka’s journey and Core Group’s contradictions

The Core Group on Sri Lanka, which sponsors resolutions at the UNHRC, is currently led by the United Kingdom and joined by Canada, Malawi, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. These countries speak forcefully on accountability in Colombo. But their own records reveal serious shortcomings. The contrast exposes a troubling double standard.

- By P.M. Amza

It is worth recalling that the United States and Germany were also part of the Core Group in earlier years, cosponsoring Sri Lanka resolutions until around 2022. Their absence from the current lineup reflects shifting diplomatic priorities opting to raise issues through bilateral channels, a desired and accepted route by democracies. The present Core Group, however, is smaller, with only five members taking the lead.

The United Kingdom: Selective memory of accountability

The UK is the loudest critic of Sri Lanka at the UNHRC, but its own history illustrates how slow and incomplete accountability can be.

Consider Bloody Sunday in Derry, Northern Ireland, on 30 January 1972, when British paratroopers shot dead 14 unarmed demonstrators. For decades, successive governments resisted full inquiry. Only in 1998—twenty-six years later—did Prime Minister Tony Blair establish the Saville Inquiry. Its report appeared in 2010, nearly thirty-eight years after the killings, concluding the shootings were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” Then-Prime Minister David Cameron issued an apology in Parliament. Yet, despite the gravity of the crimes, no soldier has ever been convicted, and in 2021 prosecutions were formally dropped. A belated apology without judicial redress sits uneasily beside Britain’s insistence on immediate accountability in Sri Lanka.

Nor is the UK’s contemporary record reassuring. In 2024, it enacted the Safety of Rwanda Act, permitting asylum seekers to be relocated to Rwanda despite the UK Supreme Court ruling the plan unsafe and UNHCR warnings of rights violations. At the same time, London only partially suspended arms exports to conflict zones during the Gaza war, leaving critical F-35 fighter jet components untouched. Domestically, civic freedoms have narrowed: over 400 arrests followed the banning of the activist group Palestine Action, raising questions about freedom of assembly.