ISAS Briefs

The sectarian violence in the city of Kandy, Sri Lanka, in March 2018 and the immediate imposition of a nationwide state of emergency have signalled that a lasting and just peace remains a distant prospect. Sri Lanka was once viewed as a possible peacebuilding success story on the international front. However, the respective transitional justice framework launched by the previous and current administrations has been largely unsuccessful. This paper will identify the country’s primary stakeholders and their vested interests in the reconciliation efforts. The current reconciliation model in Sri Lanka is a combination of retributive and restorative justice. The paper will argue that the model needs to adopt a complete restorative justice approach in order to achieve reconciliation and reach a peacebuilding (durable peace without the recurrence of violence) stage