Working Paper No. 7, on Constitutionalising Economic and Social Rights in Sri Lanka by Mario Gomez, Conor Hartnett, and Dinesha Samararatne, offers an extensive overview of both Sri Lankan and global debates and trends on the constitutional recognition of justiciable socioeconomic rights. It deals critically with conventional critiques of constitutionalisation of these rights, and offers […]
Working Paper No. 6, on Dialogue over Dominance: Alternative Perspectives on Sri Lanka’s Future Bill of Rights by Michael Mendis considers the question of the enforcement of the bill of rights and offers a dialogic model. The paper seeks to expand our understanding of judicial review, arguing that both the judicial and legislative processes have […]
The Parliament of Sri Lanka voted today to establish the Office on Missing Persons (OMP), the first permanent office solely focusing on the issue. The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) welcomes this historic move in a context where thousands continue to search for their missing and disappeared loved ones and urges the establishment of the […]
Despite the commitments and statements on transitional justice in Sri Lanka, there continues to be a limited understanding among the different stakeholders as to what transitional justice and associated concepts mean. This is compounded by the challenge of selecting the appropriate words and terms in Sinhala and Tamil languages which are best suited to and easily understood in the […]
On the night of June 7th 2007, some 300 Tamil civilians were evicted from their homes across the Colombo district and taken by police escort to Vavuniya in the Northern province. This was carried out supposedly in the interest of ‘national security’ and was a violation of fundamental human rights that CPA promptly challenged. The […]
The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) is pleased to publish the fifth paper in the CPA Working Papers on Constitutional Reform, on States of Emergency: Issues for Constitutional Design, by Dr Asanga Welikala (Research Fellow, CPA). Designing the constitutional framework governing states of emergency is a major task for constitution-makers, especially in post-colonial societies such […]
The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA) made submissions to the Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms, highlighting key areas that require attention in terms of a transitional justice process and the need for reform. The document submitted to the Task Force can be found here, along with this short note on the Office of Missing Persons – […]
Centre for Policy Alternatives on 2 September, 2016