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How Truth Commissions Promote
Accountability: An Assessment of the 1994
Zonal Commissions of Inquiry in Sri Lanka
Carlos Fernandez Torne
This article examines how truth commissions (TCs) contribute to promoting
accountability, and argues TCs generate two horizontal accountability relationships.
First, TCs hold state agencies accountable. Second, recommendations made by
TCs can generate a relationship of horizontal accountability between the governing
regime and the state agencies towards which the recommendations are directed.
Next, I present the case of the 1994 Zonal Commissions in Sri Lanka, and to
assess their contribution to accountability, I compare the evidence collected
against evaluative criteria. e results show that while the commissions produced
answerability, recommendations compiled in the nal report were not implemented.
The findings show long-term effectiveness of TCs may depend on senior officers
within the state apparatus in addition to political leaders.
Keywords truth commissions, horizontal accountability, state agencies, forced
disappearances, evaluative criteria
Introduction: Contextualizing Accountability within the Transitional
Justice Field
In transitional justice (TJ) literature, accountability commonly refers to criminal
accountability; in other words, the prosecution of those responsible for violations
of international human rights or humanitarian law, either in domestic or
international courts. Criminal accountability emphasizes the justice side of TJ,
which has been conceptualized as a “maximalist approach” (Olsen, Payne, and
Reiter 2010, 16-19). From this perspective, accountability for past violations, and
punishing perpetrators, is necessary to avoid the recurrence of violations and as
a way to deter possible other perpetrators. Beyond trials, the TJ literature also
refers to other “mechanisms of accountability,” such as administrative vetting civil
sanctions and truth commissions (TCs). While administrative vetting and civil
Asian Journal of Peacebuilding Vol. 5 No. 2 (2017): 169-193 Research Article
© 2017 e Institute for Peace and Unication Studies, Seoul National University
ISSN 2288-2693 Print, ISSN 2288-2707 Online
170 Carlos Fernandez Torne
sanctions would relate to non-criminal sanctions, TCs are considered to provide
historical accountability (Kritz 1997).
TCs also establish accountability through undertaking an official
investigation, publicly exposing the harm inflicted, and condemning human
rights violations. By disclosing information on violations, and state institutions
responsible for them, TCs hold former authoritarian regimes accountable for past
violations (Olsen, Payne, and Reiter 2010, 22). TCs also establish accountability
through public exposure and condemning perpetrators for their past violence.
Beyond naming wrongdoers, TCs can also “compel or entice perpetrators to
confess to past violence. In so doing, perpetrators subject their past violence
to public scrutiny” (Olsen, Payne, Reiter, and Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2010, 460).
Moreover, TCs put victims at the center of their process while documenting past
abuses. Commissions collect information from the victims and listen to their
stories, providing a “victim-centered process of accountability that balances
political constraints with justice demands” (Olsen, Payne, and Reiter 2010, 23).
In offering a forum for victims and their relatives to explain their stories, they
contribute to a certain level of societal acknowledgement of their loss (Kritz 1997,
141). rough documenting individual cases of violations, TCs usually establish
a formal basis for subsequent compensation of victims and, in some cases, for the
punishment of perpetrators. Finally, TCs also provide an opportunity for dealing
with the broader conditions under which violations took place. ey examine the
structural elements that made violations possible and propose institutional and
legal measures to reform them.
Central to the establishment of accountability is the transfer of what has
been disclosed, the new truth, to the public sphere. is can be done through a
commission’s interim or final report, through victims’ testimonies, or through
perpetrators’ confessions. The final report will make public the results of the
commission’s fact-nding process. It is through the report that facts and evidence
are explained and violations revealed, possibly leading to public recognition of the
victims’ suering. Also, it is through the report that the previous regime is held
accountable based on the acknowledgement that state agencies and institutions
were responsible for committing violations. Finally, it is the report that exposes
perpetrators through naming and shaming.
Although all these objectives could be assessed based on the extent to
which a TC has contributed to promoting accountability, accountability has
been approached as a means to some other goal, rather than as a goal in itself.
For example, according to Brahm, it is through exposing the gruesome details of
the past that TCs help usher in a new democratic era and advance the cause of
human rights (Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2010, 12). In this article, I consider promoting
accountability as a goal in itself rather than as a means to some other goal. On
this basis, the article presents the theory of change that TCs generate vertical
accountability relationships between the state and civil society and horizontal
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 171
accountability relationships within the state. It then examines to what extent
the Zonal Commissions of Inquiry established in Sri Lanka in 1994 contributed
to promoting horizontal accountability. This is done through comparing the
evidence collected against the set of pre-established criteria illustrated in the
following section.
Truth Commissions and Accountability Relationships
I argue that truth commissions can generate vertical and horizontal accountability
relationships (Fernandez-Torne 2015). Specically, I sustain that before they are
established, TCs can generate vertical accountability relationships between civil
society and the governing regime. During the period between establishment of
the TC and the submission of the report, TCs hold state agencies horizontally
accountable through fact-finding and victim tracing functions. As a result of
the recommendations in the final report, TCs generate, first, a relationship of
horizontal accountability between the governing regime and the state agencies
towards which the recommendations are directed. Second, TCs recommendations
can also generate a vertical accountability relationship between civil society and
the governing regime. is vertical accountability relationship takes place when
the governing regime implements the recommendations as a result of civil society
pressure.
In this article, I focus on the horizontal accountability relationships
constructed during the work of a TC and as a result of the recommendations in
the nal report. Horizontal accountability relationships are built on the basis of
state agencies legal ability to scrutinize actions by other state agencies. Specically,
Table 1. Horizontal and Vertical Accountability Relationships.
Accountability
Relationships
TC’s process
Horizontal accountability
relationships
Vertical accountability
relationships
Before establishing a TC Civil society – governing
regime
During the work of
the commission
(Actual functions)
Fact nding Truth commission – State
agencies
Victim tracing
As a result of the
recommendations
in the nal report
(Potentialities)
Victim redress Governing regime – State
agencies
Civil society – governing
regime
Prosecutorial
Preventive
Source: Author.
172 Carlos Fernandez Torne
“the existence of state agencies that are legally enabled and empowered, and
factually willing and able, to take actions that span from routine oversight to
criminal sanctions or impeachment in relation to actions or omissions by other
agents or agencies of the state that may be qualified as unlawful” (O’Donnell
1999, 38). In relation to TCs, we can distinguish two different accountability
relationships. One is the result of the actual functions a commission carries
out on its own—fact-finding and victim tracing. The second is a result of the
recommendations compiled in the nal report, or potentialities, to keep with the
terms used by the United Nations (UN) (Special Rapporteur on the Promotion of
Truth, Justice, Reparation and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence 2013, para. 38).
While carrying out its actual functions, a TC investigates and reports on
the principal causes and consequences of violence or repression. rough fact-
finding, TCs try to clarify the facts surrounding violations and the identity of
perpetrators. Victim tracing entails discovering the fate of individual victims
when their whereabouts are unknown. While carrying out their investigations,
TCs rely on victims, witnesses, civil society groups, human rights organizations,
and/or religious associations to collect information and evidence about past
violations. Such information supports the commission in its interactions
with state agencies, such as security forces or the judiciary. It is within these
interactions with state agencies that a relationship of horizontal accountability
takes place. This relationship of horizontal accountability is framed by the
mandate and powers of the commission. e TC’s mandate and powers also shape
the extent to which it can generate answerability, dened here as the obligation
of state ocials to provide notice of a decision and to explain the reasons behind
taking that decision. It is through holding state ocials horizontally accountable
that TCs generate answerability. Because TCs are authorized by the state, the
truth disclosed by state ocials becomes state answerability to society.
Potentialities of TCs refer to the recommendations compiled in their
final report. These recommendations are a consequence of the fact-finding
process, and include proposals to redress the harm done and avoid repetition.
Recommendations usually include the plans for reparation programs; measures
to address individual responsibility, such as removal of perpetrators from public
oce and/or prosecutions; and measures to reform institutions and legislation.
The implementation of these recommendations, especially those related to
measures of individual and institutional responsibility, emerges as a guarantee to
avoid repetition of the violations committed. Once a commission submits these
recommendations, it finishes its work and ceases to exist. It is the governing
regime that receives the nal report, the entity that has the power to compel the
state agencies, such as the Attorney General’s Office or the Inspector General
of the National Police, to act in accordance with the recommendations. If
implemented, these recommendations generate accountability in its enforcement
dimension. The enforcement dimension is understood as punishment of
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 173
improper behavior, through means such as the imposition of sanctions (Schedler
1999, 15), or through compensation and/or remediation (Fox 2007, 668-669).
Evaluative Criteria to Test the Horizontal Accountability Relationships of TCs
During the period between its establishment and the submission of the final
report, a TC holds state agencies horizontally accountable. This horizontal
accountability relationship produces answerability. I propose seven criteria
for establishing whether or not state agencies have been rendered answerable.
ree of these criteria deal with formal aspects that need to be fullled for the
commission to produce answerability while it undertakes the fact-finding and
victim tracing functions. The first is whether victims, witnesses, and/or civil
society organizations can access and provide information to the commission (EC-
1). is entails, rst, the TC reaching out to victims, witnesses, and civil society,
and second, creating an environment conducive to these individuals and groups
coming forward and providing information. is criterion results in the TC being
able to document complaints and violations through receiving input from the
public. e second criterion is whether or not the commission has access to state/
non-state actors and whether or not these actors have to be answerable to the
commission (EC-2). is criterion examines the capacity of a TC to interrogate
state security forces, other state agencies, and non-state actors, usually members
of a politically motivated, non-state armed group responsible for conict-related
international crimes. At the same time, the criterion also examines the power of
the commission to access documentation belonging to these actors to undertake
fact nding and victim tracing functions. e third criterion is whether or not
the final report is made public (EC-3). Such publicity is critical to transfer the
answerability produced and contained in the report to the public domain.
Evaluative criteria four to seven deal with the substance of what the report
needs to disclose to produce answerability. Particularly, the extent to which the
report discloses new facts and evidence surrounding violations committed (EC-
4) and, when cases of disappearance exist, whether or not the TC has identied
burial sites (EC-5). Evaluative criteria six and seven assess the extent to which
a TC attributes institutional and personal responsibility for the violations
committed. Particularly, whether or not the report acknowledges that state
agencies and/or non-state actors committed human rights violations (EC-6), and
whether or not the report attributes individual responsibility through naming
perpetrators (EC-7).
In its final report, a TC makes recommendations capable of generating a
horizontal accountability relationship between the governing regime and the state
agencies towards which the recommendations are directed. e implementation
of recommendations produces accountability in its enforcement dimension. Here,
I suggest five criteria. Two of the five deal with measures intended to redress
victims: whether or not reparation programs have been implemented (EC-8),
174 Carlos Fernandez Torne
and, in cases of disappearance, whether or not exhumations have been carried out
(EC-9). Two more criteria deal with issues of individual responsibility: whether or
not alleged perpetrators are prosecuted (EC-10), and whether or not perpetrators
have been removed from public oce (EC-11). e nal criterion is whether or
not institutional or legal reforms to prevent future violations have been adopted
(EC-12).
Table 2 summarizes these twelve evaluative criteria, and examines horizontal
accountability relationships during the work of the commission and as a result
of the recommendations in the final report. It includes the evaluative criteria
showing when answerability and enforcement are produced. Evidence collected
to assess the contribution of a TC to promoting accountability should be
Table 2. Criteria to evaluate answerability and enforcement.
Accountability
Relationships
TCs process
Horizontal accountability relationships
During the work
of the commission
(Actual functions)
Fact-Finding
Victim
tracing
Truth commission – State agencies: produces answerability
Evaluative criteria showing state agencies are being
rendered answerable
EC-1: Victims, witnesses, and/or civil society organizations
can access and provide information to the commission
EC-2: e commission has access to state/non-state actors
and these actors have to be answerable to the commission.
EC-3: e nal report is made public.
EC-4: The report discloses new facts and evidence
surrounding violations committed.
EC-5: In case of disappearances, the TC has identified
burial sites.
EC-6: e report acknowledges that state agencies and/or
non-state actors committed violations of human rights.
EC-7: The report attributes individual responsibility
through naming perpetrators.
As a result of
recommendations
in the nal report
(Potentialities)
Victim
redress
Prosecutorial
Preventive
Governing regime – State agencies: produces enforcement
Evaluative criteria for demonstrating production of
enforcement by the governing regime
EC-8: Reparation programs have been implemented.
EC-9: In cases of disappearances, exhumations have been
carried out.
EC-10: Alleged perpetrators are prosecuted.
EC-11: Perpetrators have been removed from public oce.
EC-12: Institutional or legal reforms to prevent future
violations have been adopted.
Source: Author.
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 175
compared against this set of pre-established criteria. In the next section, I apply
this framework to the commissions established in Sri Lanka in 1994.
Case Study: e 1994 Zonal Commissions in Sri Lanka
In this section, I rst present an overview of the three Zonal Commissions, and
next I assess the contribution of these commissions in promoting accountability.
While the three Zonal Commissions of Inquiry were never called a “truth
commission” in Sri Lanka, they have been considered as such by the academic
literature on truth commissions, TJ experts, as well as by reports of international
organizations.1
e Zonal Commissions: An Overview
Through presidential orders issued on November 30, 1994, new President
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga established three Zonal Commissions
of Inquiry (COIs) into disappearances to deal with human rights violations
committed since January 1, 1988 under the previous United National Party (UNP)
government.2 e COIs were organized based on three geographical areas: one
COI to cover the Northern and Eastern Provinces (North East Commission);
another for the North Western, North Central, Central, and Uva Provinces
(Central Commission); and the last for the Western, Sabaragamuwa, and
Southern Provinces (Southern Commission).
Through establishing three Commissions organized around geographical
areas, President Kumaratunga was also assigning them to separate armed
conflicts. The Southern and Central Commissions dealt with extrajudicial
killings3 and disappearances resulting from the second armed insurrection of the
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP; People’s Liberation Front) from 1987 until
1989. is armed conict ended in 1989 with the state security forces crushing
the insurgency and committing widespread violations and disappearances. On the
other hand, the North East Commission dealt primarily with violations resulting
from the armed conict between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Cases of killings and disappearances in relation
to the JVP insurgency represented less than 10 percent of all the cases the North
East Commission examined. Moreover, the North East Commission was only
able to deal with a limited number of the overall violations as the armed conict
resumed in April 1995.4 Only 10 percent of the violations examined related to
the Northern Province, which was most aected by the renewed armed conict.
Ninety percent of the complaints investigated pertained to the Eastern province.
But even within the Eastern Province, most of the inquiries the Commission
undertook concerned violations committed between June and December 1990,
coinciding with the state security forces brutal response to the LTTE massacre of
176 Carlos Fernandez Torne
600 police ocers.
Under the presidential orders, the three COIs had the same mandate.
They were tasked to inquire into and report on persons involuntarily removed
or disappeared after January 1, 1988; the evidence available to establish such
alleged removals or disappearances; victims’ present whereabouts; any credible
material indicative of the person or persons responsible for the alleged removals
or disappearances; the legal proceedings that should be taken against the persons
responsible; measures necessary to prevent the occurrence of such alleged
activities in the future; the relief that should be aorded to their relatives; and to
make recommendations with reference to any of the previous matters (President
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga 1995). e Commissions had an initial
period of four months, until March 31, 1995, to discharge the mandate. After
this initial term, the mandate was extended eight times until September 3, 1997.
e President appointed three commissioners to each COI including active and
retired judges, lawyers, and academics.
The Central Commission received 15,045 complaints in total and was
able to investigate 6,443 of them. e remaining 8,602 were handed over to the
All Island Commission, a commission established in 1998 to inquire into the
disappearances le unexamined by the three Zonal Commissions. e Southern
Commission received 8,739 complaints of disappearance, of which it inquired
into 7,761 and established 7,239 cases of involuntary removal or disappearance as
dened by the mandate. e North East Commission inquired into 2,815 cases.5
Over 90 percent of these (2,610) correspond to three districts in the Eastern
region: Trincomalee (614), Batticaloa (1,219), and Ampara (777).
e three Commissions made recommendations in the three areas examined
in this article: reparations, prosecutions, and measures intended to prevent
recurrence. With regards to reparations, the commissions recommended the
payment of compensation to the relatives of the disappeared with amounts
that exceeded those the government finally provided. They also recommended
scholarship programs for the education of children of the families of the
disappeared. As for the existence of mass graves, the Southern Commission
recommended developing training on skills needed to disinter mass graves with
the assistance of international agencies (Southern COI 1998, chapter 14).
e Commissions also recommended prosecuting perpetrators. Acknowledging
the fact that causing the disappearance of a person is not an offense under Sri
Lankan law, the Central Commission recommended prosecutions on account of
acts that constitute the ingredients of a disappearance, such as arbitrary arrests,
unlawful detention, and failure to produce before a court of law. Both the Central
and Southern Commissions recommended appointing a team of investigators
formed by police ocers from the criminal investigation department and a team
of state counsel ocials to assist these investigators with their work.
As measures to prevent the repetition of killings and disappearances, all
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 177
three Commissions recommended a general review of emergency regulations
relating to arrest and detention of persons. ey called for stricter requirements
on security officers in relation to arrest records, detention, and transfer and
release of detainees. e Commissions also called for provisions to increase the
transparency of the process including informing relatives of the detainee and
recording the name and rank of the arresting ocer, the time and date of arrest,
and the place of detention, as well as informing the arrestee of the reasons for the
arrest.
Assessing the Contribution of the Zonal Commissions in Promoting Accountability
In this section, I evaluate the contribution of the Zonal Commissions in
promoting accountability. I compare the evidence collected through semi-
structured interviews and documentary sources against the criteria proposed
to assess accountability. Following the framework presented above, criteria
one to seven correspond to the answerability produced as a result of horizontal
accountability relationships during the work of the Commissions, and criteria
eight to twelve correspond to enforcement as a result of horizontal accountability
relationships following the recommendations in the nal report.
Answerability as a result of horizontal accountability relationships during
the work of a TC (EC 1-7): In interactions with victims, witnesses, and broader
civil society, state answerability is produced when TCs disclose evidence of
state violations. For the state to be rendered answerable in the first place,
victims, witnesses, and/or civil society organizations need to access and provide
information to the commission (EC-1). rough interactions with victims and
civil society organizations, the three Zonal Commissions received around 30,000
complaints, out of which they were able to inquire into over 17,000.
The environment where each Commission operated was different. For the
Central and Southern Commissions, the environment was generally conducive
for victims and families of the disappeared to come forward, despite some cases
of intimidation and threats by security forces. e need to protect witnesses led
the Presidential Secretariat to issue a directive in February 1996 and send those
ocers interfering in the proceedings of the Commissions on compulsory leave.
is was not the case for the North East Commission as the ceasere between the
government and the LTTE declared in January 1995 was broken in April 1995
and intense fighting resumed. Thus, while victims, witnesses, and civil society
organizations were able to access and provide information to the Southern and
Central Commissions, this was not the case for the North East Commission due
to the ongoing war. Consequently, EC-1 was partially met.
State answerability is also produced as a result of the horizontal accountability
relationship between a TC and state agencies. For state agencies to be rendered
answerable, the commission has to have access to state actors, and these actors
178 Carlos Fernandez Torne
have to be answerable to the commission (EC-2). The three Commissions had
access to the police and the Army, though unevenly. While Commissioners were
able to collaborate to some degree with the police, they met a wall of silence when
approaching the Sri Lankan Army.
With regards to the police, the Commissions undertook an exhaustive fact-
finding mission to corroborate the evidence collected from victims’ relatives
and witnesses. As a result of a request by the Southern Commission, President
Kumaratunga directed the Inspector General of Police to order all officers-in-
charge of police stations to preserve information books, telephone registers,
prisoner detention registers, and other documents connected with arrests
and detentions since January 1, 1988 (Inspector General of Police 1995). Meal
registers proved to be critical evidence as they had recorded food given to
detainees even if their arrests and detentions had not been recorded. Similarly,
charts of police and other government vehicles were key to track trips to villages
and other locations around the time when disappearances had taken place.
rough such fact-nding, the Commissions produced answerability as a result
of the horizontal accountability relationships with the police.
As for the Army, the Commissions’ attempts to collect information met little
success. For instance, when the Southern Commission inquired about forty-
three army camps revealed by witnesses, the Army provided information on only
eight camps, arguing they lacked records (Southern COI 1998, annexures, 199).
Lack of records was the recurrent response by the Army also in relation to meal
registers, records regarding the release and transfer of detainees, and the names of
persons to whom the detainees were released. Still, the North East Commission
found substantial corroborative evidence as most of the arrests by the Army were
made in full public view with many witnesses (North East COI 1998, 61). In one
instance, the North East Commission requested an army commander conduct
an internal inquiry. e military court found that there was inadequate evidence
because the Army had not maintained proper records during the relevant period.
The military court considered it understandable due to the intense terrorist
activities which had halted the administrative machinery (ibid., chapter 2).
e nal report of the North East Commission expresses the frustration of the
Commissioners: “e fact is that the Army arrested people in large numbers. e
Army only can answer what happened to the corpus of those arrested. It was no
use denying that they have nothing to do with these arrests” (ibid., 62).
e Commissions had access to both the police and the Army, and they were
answerable to the Commission. However, while the Commissioners had access
to documentation that allowed them to cross-examine actions undertaken by
the police, this was not the case for the Army. is resulted in the Commissions
being much more successful in the fact-finding done in relation to the police
compared to the Army. However, because the Commissions did have access to
the police and the Army, and because these security agencies were answerable to
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 179
the Commissions, I conclude EC-2 was fullled.
e publication of the nal report transfers the state answerability resulting
from the fact-nding to the public domain. Hence, one criterion for evaluating
answerability is whether or not the nal report is made public (EC-3). e three
Commissions’ nal reports were submitted in September 1997. e government
published them in February 1998 as separate volumes. In the case of the Southern
Commission, a second volume was later submitted and published in April 1998.
While the government made the reports by the three Commissions public,
they were not widely circulated. In a 1999 report, the United Nations Working
Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) refers to the
fact that the reports “were available from the Government Publications Bureau
albeit only in a very limited number” (WGEID 1999, para.16). As various sources
indicate, relatives of the victims and those who appeared before the Commissions
were not informed of the ndings of the Commissions (ibid.; Pinto-Jayawardena
2010a, 87-88). As a representative of the local peace committee in Baticaloa
mentioned, “nobody here, not victims nor civil society organizations, got to
know about the content of the reports” (interview with Hapuarachchi 2015). It
is not clear why human rights organizations or victim groups failed to publish
summaries of reports with the key ndings of the Commissions.
Once the report is made public, we can evaluate the scope of state answer-
ability. Evaluative criterion four assesses the extent to which the report discloses
new facts and evidence surrounding violations committed (EC-4). Based on
the information provided by the relatives of those disappeared and collected
by examining documentation and records of the police, the three Zonal Com-
missions were able to disclose new facts and evidence surrounding involuntary
removals, disappearances, and extrajudicial killings.
As previously unacknowledged facts by the state, the Commissions
established around 16,500 cases of involuntary removal or disappearance,
including abductions followed by subsequent killings where the corpora were
found. e Commissions concluded that those who disappeared were dead. e
nal report of the Southern Commission mentions that “disappearance following
an abduction is in our nding only a euphemism for a killing, a reality that the
absence of recovery of the body should not be allowed to obscure” (Southern
COI 1998, chapter 5). The Central Commission found security forces had run
eight torture chambers where persons removed were conned. In Kandy District,
the Commission found a college that had been used as a detention camp by the
police’s Counter Subversive Unit. According to the evidence collected, “about 1,000
persons were detained in this camp and systematically tortured before being
taken away and killed” (Central COI 1997, interim report II).
Another previously unacknowledged fact by the state was the nding of the
political dimension of disappearances. e Central and Southern Commissions
found a clear link between the political conflicts and disappearances in areas
180 Carlos Fernandez Torne
where the JVP insurgency was active. The Central Commission found enough
material “to indicate that most of the victims were organizers of the Sri Lanka
Freedom Party” (Central COI 1998, 5), the opposition political party during the
UNP government. According to the Commission, “such persons were branded as
subversives [members of the JVP], and their names given to the police and armed
forces for elimination” (ibid.). Consequently, the security forces were used to
advance the interests of certain politicians.
Concerning the evidentiary standards, the Commissions were mandated
to collect evidence indicative of the person responsible, not evidence beyond a
reasonable doubt as in a court. Fact-finding through available documentation
disclosed new evidence surrounding violations committed. e Secretary of the
Central Commission recalls examining the victims’ testimonies with the entries
in the information books maintained by the police. He expressed:
Victims said persons who appeared to be police ocers had come home and taken
their children away. In the [police] information books, no such entries were there.
No entry in [the] detention register. But [the meal] register had entries of the person
who had disappeared having been given a meal on that day. Running charts of police
vehicles conrmed travel to the particular village. We immediately concluded there
is evidence indicative that the ocer in charge of the police station was responsible
(interview with Iqbal 2014).
From the evidence collected, I conclude the Zonal Commissions fulfilled
EC-4 as the Commission’s final reports disclosed new facts and evidence
surrounding violations committed.
Evaluative criteria ve examines whether or not a TC has identied burial
sites (EC-5). e Central Commission recorded evidence of mass graves on the
basis of information provided by complainants (personal communication with
Secretary Central COI Iqbal 2017). The Southern Commission’s final report
referred to the existence of twelve mass graves and acknowledged that there
were many more known to the local people. Where testimonies based on rst-
hand knowledge existed, the Commission recorded the existence, locations, and
identities of bodies alleged to be buried in these graves (Southern COI 1998). As
for the North East Commission, the report does not refer to the identication of
burial sites. I conclude EC-5 was only partially met as the Commissions did not
have a clear mandate to locate burial sites and they only collected evidence on the
basis of information witnesses provided.
Attribution of institutional and individual responsibilities also indicates the
scope of the answerability produced. With regards to institutional responsibility,
if the report acknowledges that state agencies and/or non-state actors committed
violations of human rights (EC-6), it is producing more answerability.
The three Commissions refer to police and Army officers as responsible
for involuntary removals or disappearances. Moreover, the North East and the
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 181
Southern Commissions also identied subversives as perpetrators. e North East
Commission found 90 percent of cases it investigated attributable to the security
forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, and police), while the LTTE was also responsible
for its own share of removals (North East COI 1998, 62). The Southern
Commission found that petitioners identified perpetrators in 5,696 out of the
7,239 cases where disappearance was proved. Among these 5,696 cases, 4,858
(85.2 percent) petitioners identied agents of the state or paramilitary groups as
collaborators. e subversive groups were identied as perpetrators in 779 cases
(13.7 percent) (Southern COI 1998, chapter 4). In addition to the security forces
and the subversive groups, the Central and the Southern Commissions also refer
to the UNP political leaders as responsible for disappearances. Consequently, I
conclude EC-6 was fullled as the three Commissions’ reports acknowledged that
state agencies and non-state actors had committed violations of human rights.
With regards to whether or not the report attributed individual responsibility
through naming perpetrators (EC-7), the three Zonal Commissions adopted
a different approach. The Southern Commission did not name names on the
grounds that the evidence was collected ex-parte without cross-examining alleged
perpetrators. The Commission submitted a list of over 600 perpetrators to the
President under a separate le which was not published.
On the contrary, the interim reports of the Central Commission included
the name of fifteen alleged perpetrators. The Central Commission also sent a
condential list under a separate cover to the President with the names of persons
deemed responsible in 1,396 cases of disappearance. e nal report of the North
East Commission names ten Army and police ocers against whom there was
evidence for initiating prosecution (North East COI 1998, 62). Furthermore, the
report also names ocers against whom there was evidence available in relation
to forty-eight cases of disappearance (ibid., annexure E). Again, EC-7 was only
partially fulfilled. While the Central and North East Commissions included
some names of alleged perpetrators in their nal reports, lists with hundreds of
names were condentially sent to the President in separate documents and never
published.
Enforcement as a result of horizontal accountability relationships after the
recommendations (EC 8-12): President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga
was the President of Sri Lanka from November 1994 to November 2005. As the
former Secretary of the Central Commission wrote:
That even the President who appointed the Commissions of Inquiry into
disappearances had not been serious about the issues involved and the
recommendations made is seen from the fact that none of the four reports of the
Commissions have been placed before the Parliament for a full discussion on them to
enable the Parliament to take action on the recommendations contained in them and
182 Carlos Fernandez Torne
to raise public awareness of the issues (Iqbal 2004a).
A criterion to assess fulllment of the enforcement dimension of accountability
is whether or not reparation programs have been implemented (EC-8). e three
Commissions found family members were in dire situations as the breadwinner
had been disappeared in most cases.
The amounts provided by the government as compensation were less
than those recommended by the Commissions. Under a 1988 program called
“Payments of Compensation to Most Affected Persons,” the Ministry of
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction provided LKR$ 50,000 (US$ 800) for the death
of a married man;6 LKR$ 25,000 (US$ 400) for the death of an unmarried person;
and LKR$ 15,000 (US$ 240) for the death of a minor. An ex-gratia payment was
given to the families of public officers of up to LKR$ 150,000 (US$ 2,400) and
payment of the full salary and allowances of the deceased ocer until he would
have reached 55 years of age. Finally, LKR$ 500,000 (US$ 8,000) was provided
for the death or disappearance of a politician (personal communication with
Secretary of Central COI Iqbal 2017). Nevertheless, the Rehabilitation of Persons,
Properties and Industries Authority tasked to provide the payments sometimes
did not do so, alleging non-allocation of funds by the Ministry of Treasure (Iqbal
2004b). Although the three Commissions made extensive recommendations
on reparations, the families of the victims only received a limited amount of
monetary compensation. Thus, I conclude EC-8 was only partially met. Only
some relatives of those killed or disappeared received compensation, and the
implementation of reparation programs ended there. As a result, very few of the
whole range of recommendations intended to redress victims were effectively
implemented and produced enforcement.
A specic criterion to assess the production of enforcement in commissions
looking into disappearances is whether or not exhumations have been carried
out (EC-9). Even though the Southern Commission recommended developing
training in the requisite skills with the assistance of international agencies, this
was never done. Not even the recommendation to collect information on the
existence of mass graves, their locations, and identities of bodies alleged to be
buried was implemented (Southern COI 1998, chapter 14).
With regards to individual responsibility, there is enforcement if prosecutions
have taken place (EC-10). As mandated, the Commissions collected and
presented, in their reports, evidence indicative of the persons responsible for
violations. Such evidence was not intended to prove the guilt of the alleged
perpetrators in a criminal proceeding, but to facilitate and direct the work of the
police investigation. To safeguard the independence of the investigators, both the
Southern and Central Commissions recommended appointing a special police
unit for such investigations. As a result, in November 1997, the government
established the Disappearances Investigation Unit (DIU) under the Deputy
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 183
Inspector General of Police of the Criminal Investigations Department (All
Island Commission 2002, 15). e DIU was to conduct criminal investigations
by collecting evidence in addition to that presented by the Commissions, and
send the cases to court. Data concerning cases investigated, criminal proceedings
started, and number of convictions is available through UN reports.
e rst reference to prosecutions as a result of the three Zonal Commissions
is in the 1999 report from the WGEID. e report mentions the Commissions
identied suspected perpetrators in relation to 3,861 cases of disappearance, and
that the DIU had started investigations against 1,560 suspected perpetrators,
including members of the police and armed forces (WGEID 1999, para. 34). e
report further refers to the establishment of the Missing Persons Unit (MPU) (the
unit in charge of cases of disappearance within the Attorney General’s oce) on
July 14, 1998, and to the fact that the MPU had received dossiers relating to 890
cases of disappearance from the DIU. e task of the MPU was to consider the
initiation of criminal proceedings against perpetrators. e report further refers
to the fact that criminal proceedings had started against 486 persons in relation
to 270 cases of disappearance as of October 1, 1999. As enforced disappearance
was not a criminal oense under Sri Lankan criminal law, criminal proceedings
were brought forth on other offenses such as abduction with intent to murder,
wrongful connement, torture, rape, or murder. e report also highlights that
the rst of the accused, a police ocer, was convicted for the crime of abduction
and sentenced to five years of imprisonment on September 14, 1999 (WGEID
1999, para. 35).
The next reference to prosecution as the result of the recommendations
by the three Commissions is in the fourth periodic report submitted by the
government to the Human Rights Committee. The report refers to the DIU
having completed, as of December 31, 2000, criminal investigations of 1,175 cases
out of 1,681, and having sent the notes of the investigations to the MPU. The
report refers to criminal proceedings having started against 597 security forces
personnel in relation to 348 cases (Government of Sri Lanka 2002, para. 156-160).
is represents an increase of criminal proceedings against 111 new members of
the security forces in relation to seventy-eight new cases compared to the 1999
report of the WGEID (1999, para. 35).
The last official data available appears in the report submitted by the
government to the Committee against Torture. However, the report excludes
data from the North East Commission without any explanation, and includes
data from the All Island Commission and the Board of Investigation for Jana
established in 1996. According to this report, the DIU conducted investigations
on 3,615 cases. Of these, 2,462 cases had been completed and the relevant les
of 2,095 cases had been forwarded to the Attorney General, on whose advice
1,033 cases have been closed. Investigations with regard to 256 cases could not
be continued due to insufficient evidence. The data provided indicates that
184 Carlos Fernandez Torne
432 cases were filed, with 178 concluded and 247 pending. In this report, the
government does not provide the total number of personnel against whom
criminal proceedings had started. e report mentions that while twelve of the
accused had been convicted, 130 had been acquitted (Government of Sri Lanka
2004, para. 63-64). ere is no indication of how many of these cases mentioned
in the report overlap with those mentioned in the report to the Human Rights
Committee or the report by the WGEID.
e 2004 report refers to twelve convictions and 130 acquittals (ibid.), while
the 1999 report estimates investigations against 1,560 suspected perpetrators
(WGEID 1999, para. 34). e former Secretary of the Central Commission refers
to these cases as a government strategy to deal with international pressure at the
United Nations. According to him:
e government has to give an account of what happened to the Commissions’ report.
What action did you take? ey have to say we have started so many prosecutions;
cases are pending before the courts; then nobody can pressurize. at is why at every
[United Nations] session they used to give figures; to give figures they must have
some cases led (interview with Iqbal 2014).
By 2002, at least 348 cases were led against 597 security forces personnel in
response to the recommendations of the three Zonal Commissions, with notes of
investigation concerning hundreds of other cases at the MPU ready to be led.
e government used various strategies to attenuate the number of cases to be
led and that of convictions. One way to reduce the number of cases to be led
was inaction by the MPU. When the DIU sent the notes of investigation to the
MPU alleging insufficient evidence to take the investigation further, this was
accepted without any objection (Pinto-Jayawardena 2010a, 101). In this way,
the Attorney General turned down many cases on the grounds of insufficient
evidence.
The cases actually filed with courts were usually against junior officers.
One reason for this is that the DIU would simply not return the files relating
to senior ocers to the MPU, claiming investigations were incomplete. As one
report noted, “such delays are said to result from ‘considerations of brotherhood.’
Investigators are especially likely to protect senior officers at the expense of
juniors” (Asian Legal Resource Center 2002). Another report goes further to state
that “those police ocers who investigated their superior ocers in this regard
too zealously were transferred out of the DIU or penalized in some other way”
(Pinto-Jayawardena 2010a, 101). The 2015 report of the OHCHR investigation
on Sri Lanka further highlights this saying, “most of the cases referred to courts
involved alleged perpetrators of a low rank in the police and military. Since
DIU itself consisted of police ocers, credible sources told [the investigators of
OHCHR] that it was reluctant to pursue investigations against superior ocers”
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 185
(OHCHR 2015, para. 503).
At the same time, the number of people convicted remained low. Yasantha
Kodagoda, Senior State Counsel at the MPU, stated that the convictions rate was
as low as 5 percent (interview with Kodagoda 2015). Referring to the low number
of convictions, the Human Rights Committee pointed to the lack of satisfactory
evidence and unavailability of witnesses. It also recommended that the authorities
“diligently enquire into all cases of suspected intimidation of witnesses and
establish a witness protection program in order to put an end to the climate of
fear that plagues the investigation and prosecution of such cases” (Human Rights
Committee 2003, para. 9).
Another strategy to decrease the number of convictions was through
cross-examining victims. At the time disappearances were taking place, the
police had refused to accept complaints. Only after the Commissions were
appointed in 1994 was a directive issued to the police to accept complaints,
even in respect to incidents that had happened long before. Consequently, most
of the complainants who appeared before the Commissions produced copies
of complaints made to the police long after the incident occurred, which the
Commissions accepted. ese complaints had to be annexed to the applications
for compensation provided by the state (personal communication with Secretary
of Central COI Iqbal 2016). In these complaints, the victim petitioners had been
asked not to refer to the identity of the perpetrator, but rather to state that the
perpetrators were unknown. In this regard, the Chairperson of the Southern
Commission stated, “references to anyone by name entailed having to go through
a prosecution” (interview with Muttetuwegama 2014). Similarly, the official
government forms which have to be signed to receive compensation actually
stated that perpetrators were “subversive” or “unknown.” Hence, by signing this
form, victims would be acknowledging that they did not know who perpetrated
the crime (Pinto-Jayawardena 2010a, 102).
When those cases were led and victims were testifying about the identity
of the perpetrators, the defense counsel used their earlier statement on the
compensation form to impugn their credibility. Mr. Kodagoda referred to this
technical problem stating:
Some of these people, either due to the security situation that prevailed at that time or
due to the need to get compensation, had, previous to these Commissions, also made
statements to the police as well as to civil administrators saying that their so-and-so
had been abducted and had disappeared and they did not know the identities of the
abductors. Several years down the road, they had told the Commission or the DIU
the identities of the perpetrators. So, on the face of it, there was sucient material
to cross-examine the witnesses, so their testimonial trustworthiness was seriously in
doubt (interview with Kodagoda 2015).
The problem here is that state agencies, the police, the Attorney General,
186 Carlos Fernandez Torne
and the judiciary did not see the outcome of the fact-finding done by the
Commissions as a reference point from which the police could further
investigate for the Attorney General to build stronger cases. Rather, they saw the
Commissions’ ndings as information that needed to be crosschecked and, if and
when contradictions came up, use it as grounds to drop the cases. Two reasons
justify this approach: judicial attitudes and the war between the government and
the LTTE in the Northeast, which restarted in April 1995 aer negotiations for a
peace agreement failed.
In relation to judicial attitudes, some within the judiciary felt extra-judicial
elimination of insurgents was necessary to restore security and normalcy in
the country. A report points at institutional and motivational factors within the
prosecutorial and judicial system to explain the low rate of convictions. The
report refers to an interview with a former senior state counsel who is quoted as
saying:
e attitude of counsel, courts and the accused sometimes make our work dicult.
The attitude seems to be that if the police/Army had not resorted with such force
against subversives at that time, our society will not have survived that era. Hence
what is done is believed to be justied. Some believe that the police ocers were only
doing their job. Some judges are also biased by the personal experiences that they
have had to undergo during this period (Pinto-Jayawardena 2010a, 101).
e ongoing war in the Northeast was another reason interviewees justied
the low rate of convictions. A former Commissioner of the Southern Commission
stated that “the war was not over. Some perpetrators went from the South to the
North [to ght]. In a situation where the war is not over, even the government
cannot really take action against the higher ups” (interview with Jayawardena
2014). us, I nd that EC-10 was not fullled. e state agencies did not work
towards implementing the Commissions’ recommendations for prosecution, and,
as a result, the enforcement produced was very limited.
Another measure concerning individual responsibility that demonstrates
enforcement is whether or not perpetrators have been removed from public
oce (EC-11). e Southern Commission recommended interdiction of ocers
following initiation of criminal proceedings (Pinto-Jayawardena 2010b, 94).
According to the lawyer of a victim’s group:
Some ocers were interdicted, but widely the government, the [Inspector General of
Police], by an order circular, lied this interdiction and they were reinstated. In a case
led by us, the Court of Appeal held that [the reinstatement] was illegal and they were
again interdicted. But we do not know what happened then after, the government
changed (interview with Kumarage 2015).
Indeed, the Deputy Inspector General on Personnel and Training of the
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 187
police issued a circular directing the reinstatement of all officers interdicted
following inquiries conducted by the DIU and charged in courts but subsequently
released on bail. However, the circular was eventually quashed, as the Court
of Appeal understood that, on the basis of the Establishment Code, officers
against whom criminal proceedings had started should not be reinstated (Pinto-
Jayawardena 2010b, 94, fn. 124). However, recommendations by the Central
and Southern Commissions to initiate disciplinary actions against government
ocials were not implemented. Consequently, I conclude EC-11 was not fullled.
Evaluative criteria twelve considers whether or not institutional or
legal reforms to prevent future violations have been adopted. Most of the
recommendations made by the Commissions to prevent future violations
concerned reviewing emergency legislation related to arrest and detention. e
government did not implement most of them. us, it must be found that EC-12
was not fullled.
Explaining Lack of Enforcement aer the Recommendations
e previous analysis shows that while the Commissions produced answerability
as a result of horizontal accountability relationships with state agencies, the
recommendations compiled in the final reports did not lead to enforcement.
To explain the lack of enforcement following the recommendations, I examine
the responses from the state agencies to the Commissions’ recommendations to
prosecute. In the context of Sri Lanka, the state apparatus worked as a system to
protect itself against a change of political leaders at the top. e state apparatus’
self-protection mechanism entailed actions (and inactions) to reduce the number
of cases filed and to lower the rate of convictions when prosecutions went
ahead. To meet these ends, first, state agencies did not treat the investigation
results by the Commissions as a basis for prosecutions. Rather, they treated
such ndings as information that needed to be crosschecked, and, if and when
contradictions came up, as grounds to drop those cases. Second, intimidation of
witnesses amidst a climate of fear plagued the investigations and prosecutions
of these cases. ird, inaction on the part of the MPU aer accepting, without
any objection, the DIU’s allegations of insucient evidence also contributed to
a lower number of cases being led. At court, victims serving as witnesses were
cross-examined based on lacunas in their statements given to the Commissions
years before about incidents that had taken place sometimes as many as ten years
earlier. Victim’s credibility was also impugned on the basis of official forms on
which they were forced to allege ignorance of the identity of the perpetrators in
order to receive compensation.
Various factors led state agencies to act as a system of self-protection. e
Sri Lankan Army and the police agreed with the Commissions’ findings that
the political leaders from the previous regime were responsible for directing the
security forces to disappear people on the grounds they were insurgents. However,
188 Carlos Fernandez Torne
those political leaders were not brought to justice. ose prosecuted were ocers
of the security forces, mainly police personnel. Faced with the prospect of
prosecuting their own personnel while the real culprits (political leaders) escape,
the security forces, including the police, must have acted to protect themselves.
Second, considerations of brotherhood within the police also worked to that
effect. Officers of the DIU were investigating their colleagues. Consequently,
when criminal proceedings were initiated against police officers of a higher
rank, investigations appear to have concluded that the cases reached a dead
end. Only cases against junior ocers were sent to the MPU to initiate criminal
proceedings. ird, some prosecutors, judges, and the accused themselves tended
to legitimate the response of the security forces on the grounds that if they had
not responded to the armed insurgency as they did, Sri Lankan society would not
have survived that time period. Finally, many interviewees pointed to the ongoing
war in the North and East of the country against the LTTE as justification for
the low rate of convictions. What the previous analysis shows is the failure of the
institutional response (the establishment of the DIU and the MPU) to punish
those responsible. Lack of punishment entailed leaving the perpetrators within
the security forces, especially in the Sri Lankan Army.
Conclusion
I have analyzed two horizontal accountability relationships: first, between a
TC and the state agencies during the work of a TC, and, second, between the
governing regime and state agencies as a result of the recommendations in the
post-report period. With regards to the former, the evaluation has shown that the
three Zonal Commissions generated horizontal accountability relationships as a
result of their interactions with security forces. Specically with the police, the
Commissions were able to conduct an exhaustive investigation through accessing
various police information books. However, the Commissions were not successful
in holding the Army horizontally accountable as it continuously refused to
provide information. Overall, COIs were successful in their fact-nding work that
produced state answerability through disclosing evidence in support of violations
committed by security forces and politicians.
Nevertheless, it is not enough to produce answerability; this answerability
needs to be transferred to the public domain. Through the COIs, the new
governing regime held the old system accountable. But exposure of the old
regime to the new government through a TC should also be an exposure of the
old regime to the citizens once the TC’s report is released to the public. Here, the
government failed to transfer that answerability to the public domain. And, civil
society organizations, especially human rights organizations and victim groups,
possibly failed to compensate for the lack of action by the government through
How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 189
publishing summaries of reports with the key ndings of the Commissions.
Regarding the second horizontal accountability relationship between the
governing regime and state agencies, few of the Commission’s recommendations
resulted in enforcement. While small amounts of money were provided as
compensation to victims and families, most of the recommendations to redress
victims’ suffering were not implemented. Neither recommendations to collect
information on the location of mass graves, nor calls to exhume burial sites
and identify bodies were implemented. Recommendations to prosecute those
responsible produced extensive answerability from the various state agencies
concerned, but limited enforcement. Extensive answerability was established as
the DIU investigated thousands of cases on the basis of the outcomes of fact-
finding surveys done by the Commissions, and this led to the MPU starting
criminal proceedings against 597 security forces personnel. But limited
enforcement was realized as only twelve perpetrators out of 597 security forces
personnel prosecuted were convicted as of 2004, most of them junior officers.
Finally, the government did not implement most of the recommendations
intended to remove perpetrators from public office or to adopt institutional or
legal reforms to avoid repetition.
e analysis of the impact of the three Commissions shows that, while the
Commissions produced answerability during its work as a result of horizontal
accountability relationships with state agencies, the recommendations compiled
in the nal reports did not lead to enforcement. e response of state agencies
to the Commissions’ recommendations to prosecute shows investigative and
prosecutorial agencies working towards self-protection. These developments
indicate that the long-term effectiveness of a TC may depend not only on the
willingness of political leaders in the new regime, but also on the senior ocers
within the state apparatus.
Notes
1. Some of these include Amnesty International 2010; Backer 2009; Bakiner 2014;
Brahm 2009; Dancy, Kim, and Wiebelhaus-Brahm 2010; Freeman 2006; Hayner 2002,
2011.
2. I examine the 1994 Zonal Commissions but not the 1998 All Island Commission,
which was established to follow up on cases le unaddressed by the 1994 COIs. I limit my
analysis to the Zonal Commissions as these were established immediately aer the electoral
victory of President Kumaratunga, which ended seventeen years of United National Party
presidential rule and allowed for the transition to unfold. Nonetheless, where appropriate, I
have made reference to the work of the All Island Commission.
3. Although the Commissions had the mandate to inquire into involuntary removals
and disappearances, it also looked into extrajudicial killings.
4. e war resumed in the Northern province when LTTE broke the January 1995 cease-
190 Carlos Fernandez Torne
re on April 19, sinking two patrol boats and shooting down two troop transport planes,
killing ninety-seven people.
5. As opposed to the other two Commissions, the North East Commission’s nal report
does not provide the total numbers of complaints received and how many of those were
eectively investigated. e gure of 2,815 is calculated based on the number of complaints
investigated, when this number appears in the corresponding district chapter, and the list
of complaints inquired which appears in the annexures for some other districts.
6. Average exchange rate years 1996-1999: $US 1 = ± LKR$ 62.5.
Appendix: List of Interviewees
Former Commissioners and Committee Members
1. Manouri Muttetuwegama. Chairperson, COI into the Involuntary Removal
or Disappearance of Persons in the Western, Southern, and Sabaragamuwa
Provinces. October 24, 2014, Colombo.
2. Amal Jayawardena. Commissioner, COI into the Involuntary Removal
or Disappearance of Persons in the Western, Southern, and Sabaragamuwa
Provinces. October 24, 2014, Colombo.
3. MCM Iqbal. Secretary, COI into the Involuntary Removal or Disappearance
of Persons in the Central, North Western, North Central, and Uva Provinces. July
9, 2014, Amsterdam.
Governing Regime
4. Yasantha Kodagoda. Senior State Counsel, Missing Persons Unit, Attorney
General’s Oce. July 3, 2015, Colombo.
People Supporting Victims
5. Chandra Pala Kumarage. Legal advisor of the Organization of Parents and
Family Members of the Disappeared. July 1, 2015, Colombo.
6. Amara Hapuarachchi. Peace Committee in Batticaloa. July 6, 2015,
Batticaloa.
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How Truth Commissions Promote Accountability 193
Carlos Fernandez Torne is a consultant with the Oce of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR), researching how transitional justice measures contribute to the prevention
of gross violations and abuses of human rights and serious violations of international humanitarian
law. Carlos holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona,
a DEA in Peace and International Security from the Instituto Universitario Gutiérrez Mellando,
National University of Distance Education, and a MA in International Relations from the Barcelona
Institute of International Studies. This article is based on his Ph.D. thesis finalized in May 2017.
Previously, Carlos has been working as a lawyer in Barcelona, Spain, and as a human rights ocer
with the OHCHR in Nepal, where he lived between 2008 and 2012. Carlos is the Chair of the Steering
Committee of the Standing Group on Human Rights and Transitional Justice of the European
Consortium for Political Research (more at: www.tjasia.org).
Submitted: September 8, 2016; Revised: April 25, 2017; Accepted: October 10, 2017
