International Human Rights Internship Report
Name: Logan Willis
Organization: Centre for Policy Alternatives, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Sponsoring Law Firm: Goodmans LLP
Overview
I participated in an IHRP Internship at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The internship was funded by Goodmans LLP. My work consisted primarily of research and writing related to the issues of federalism, self-determination and secession, and the application of Canadian and international law related to these issues to the Sri Lankan context.
The Centre for Policy Alternatives (CPA)
The CPA is Sri Lanka’s premier political NGO and think tank. It is an independent, non-partisan organization which receives funds from international and bilateral funding agencies and foundations. The activities of the organization are carried out by a variety of departments, including a media monitoring unit, a peace and conflict resolution unit, and a legal/constitutional unit. All units work in closely with each other and projects tend to overlap. The CPA’s work ranges from public interest litigation and constitutional reform to the monitoring of the incidence of election-related violence, media reform, conflict resolution and a political solution to the ethnic conflict.
A substantial portion of the work performed by the CPA is carried-out in collaboration with other intergovernmental and civil society organizations, such as United Nations Development Program, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, Article 19, the Free Media Movement, the International Labour Organization and the Forum of Federations.
Those interested in working with the CPA can be assured that it is an extremely professional organization. It operates at the highest levels of Sri Lankan politics and law, and it is well connected internationally and domestically. The CPA is very familiar with employing foreigners, so internsare likely to find that theirwork is well supervised and that they are integrated easily into the work of the organization.
I worked in the Legal and Constitutional Unit, which engages in public interest litigation, political advocacy and constitutional reform. While the focus of this unit is decidedly local, international law and commonwealth law carries persuasive value in the Sri Lankan legal system, so there is a great deal of opportunity for foreign interns to become involved with interestingprojects notwithstanding the domestic focus of these cases. During my internship, the CPA Legal and Constitutional Unit employed lawyers and interns from a variety of countries including France, India, the United States, the Philippines and Canada.
My Experience
The CPA Legal and Constitutional Unit is involved with the peace negotiations between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). In that capacity it has proposed reforms to the Sri Lankan constitution that would use a federalist framework to balance the desire for independence on the part of the Tamil Tigers with the desire for territorial integrity on the part of the Government. This work involves both working with the prospective reforms themselves and persuading the electorate that federalism is a feasible and desirable option. During my time at the CPA, I worked on a series of projects that related to this initiative.
My work included research and writing on long-term issues and engagement with ongoing constitutional litigation. The research project related to the incidence of secessionism in federal countries. I addressed the contentious issue of whether federalism provides a stepping-stone toward secession. In this regard I studied the laws of secession in Canada (ie the Clarity Act and the Supreme Court of Canada judgment in Reference Regarding the Secession of Quebec)and considered how they might apply to the Sri Lankan context. I alsostudied the history of nationalism and secessionism in the Catalan region in Spain and attempted to apply elements of that situation to the Sri Lankan context.
In addition, I provided research forthe CPA regarding a dispute in the Sri Lankan Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of an agreement between the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE that would have allowed funds donated to the Government for the purposes of Tsunami relief to be used by the LTTE in affected areas under its control (the P-TOMS agreement). In contemplation of its stance on the issue, I undertook a comparison of the P-TOMS arrangement to intergovernmental funds-sharing agreements in Canada, and private-public sector partnerships.
I also participated in a number of other public interest litigation cases by performing background research on the international and Canadian law. The most significant and the most interesting of these cases involved a law introduced by the Government that would outlaw proselytism. While I provided the initial legal research on this issue for the CPA, my internship ended before the Act was introduced into Parliament and before litigation arose in the courts.
Lessons Learned from the Experience
My internship with the CPA was an invaluable learning experience. The life experience gained from immersion in a different country and political system was matched only by the first hand exposure to diplomacy and negotiation. Applying Canadian law in a foreign context provides an opportunity to see the Canadian law in a different light and to critique it from a fresh perspective. Finally, the opportunity to debate law and politics with students, academics and practitioners from other parts of the world provides fantastic exposure to a diversity of ideas, arguments and new ways of thinking.