Whose Mission? Limits and Potentials of the SLMM
The article gives an assessment of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission, primarily of the mission's limits and potentials with regards to human rights monitoring and enforcement. The SLMM is a Nordic peacekeeping operation put in place as a result of the February 2002 agreement between Sri Lanka's government and main rebel group, the LTTE, to help cease hostilities in the island's two-decade long civil war. The article introduces the main challenges faced by the SLMM and how the mission has tried to deal with them, and discusses the performance of the SLMM with regards to human rights monitoring in light of dynamics of ownership and accountability. Finally, suggestions are made as for how to ensure better human rights protection in a transitional no-peace, no-war Sri Lanka.
