International Mechanism Submissions

This report address Sri Lanka’s Compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its human rights obligations with regard to its use of the death penalty.

While Sri Lanka continues to acknowledge itself as a de facto abolitionist state, it continues to sentence people to death while also recently expanding the death penalty to apply to drug-related offenses. Even in light of Sri Lanka's assertion that it does not intend to carry out any executions, its expansion of the death penalty to additional offenses not limited to the most serious crimes demonstrates a regression away from abolition. Further, research suggests that detention conditions continue to remain poor. Despite these setbacks, Sri Lanka has taken significant steps in attempting to address concerns relating to torture and ill-treatment of people in detention and the overcrowding in prisons by putting the necessary committees in place to implement positive changes.