The Law and Society Trust

Last updated

The Law and Society Trust is a non-profit making body in Sri Lanka that was set up in Colombo in 1982. The activities of the trust concerns with improving public awareness on civil and political rights; social, economic and cultural rights and equal access to justice. [1] [2] [3] The Trust is a member organization of the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA). [4]

Sri Lanka Island country in South Asia

Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island country in South Asia, located in the Indian Ocean to the southwest of the Bay of Bengal and to the southeast of the Arabian Sea. The island is geographically separated from the Indian subcontinent by the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait. The legislative capital, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, is a suburb of the commercial capital and largest city, Colombo.

Colombo Commercial Capital in Western Province, Sri Lanka

Colombo is the commercial capital and largest city of Sri Lanka by population. According to the Brookings Institution, Colombo metropolitan area has a population of 5.6 million, and 752,993 in the city proper. It is the financial centre of the island and a popular tourist destination. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to the Greater Colombo area which includes Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, the legislative capital of Sri Lanka and Dehiwala-Mount Lavinia. Colombo is often referred to as the capital since Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte is within the urban area of, and a suburb of, Colombo. It is also the administrative capital of the Western Province and the district capital of Colombo District. Colombo is a busy and vibrant place with a mixture of modern life and colonial buildings and ruins.

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life of the society and state without discrimination or repression.

Contents

Mission

The Trust is concerned with the consideration and improvement of professional skills within the legal community. The Law and Society Trust has taken a leading role in promoting co-operation between government and society within South Asia on questions relating to human rights, democracy and minority protection and has participated in initiatives to develop a global intellectual and policy agenda.

South Asia Southern region of Asia

South Asia or Southern Asia, is a term used to represent the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan SAARC countries and, for some authorities, adjoining countries to the west and east. Topographically, it is dominated by the Indian Plate, which rises above sea level as Nepal and northern parts of India situated south of the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush. South Asia is bounded on the south by the Indian Ocean and on land by West Asia, Central Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

Activities

The Trust designs activities and programmes, and commissions studies and publications, which have attempted to make the law play a more meaningful role within the society. The Trust also utilises law as a resource in the battle against underdevelopment and poverty and is involved in the organization of a series of programmes to improve access to the mechanisms of justice, as well as programmes aimed at members of the legal community, to use the law as a tool for social change. These include publications, workshops, seminars and symposia. [5]

Library

The LST Library [6] , which is also home to the Information and Documentation Unit, comprises approximately 8,000 books, including a rare collection of early Sri Lankan legal literature and contemporary archival material, such as the New Law Reports (NLR), Sri Lanka Law Reports (SLR), Legislative Enactments, Acts of Sri Lanka. The reference collection is particularly rich in historical material related to the Sri Lankan legal system. The LST Library also contains over 60 titles of Sri Lankan and International Journals, including bulletins and newsletters that are relevant to existing research programmes. The Library’s special collections include the Sam Kadirgamar collection, which was acquired in 1991, and consists of a substantial number of legal texts, including Indian, English, South African and Sri Lankan Law Reports as well as a number of key texts on several aspects of the law.The Canada Section, established with the assistance of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), features a collection of the Dominion Law Reports (1956 -1990) and a collection of the Osgoode Hall Law Journals (1958-1989). The Library also holds U.S. Law Reports (1882-1984) and Indian Supreme Court Cases until 2008. Referral services are available to users via our networks with other libraries, such as the Nadesan Centre, Centre for Policy Alternatives and the International Centre for Ethnic Studies. The LST Library is open to the public and subscription to it is free.

See also

Nissanka Wijeyeratne Sri Lankan diplomat

Deshamanya Nissanka Parakrama Wijeyeratne, known as Nissanka Wijeyeratne, was a Sri Lankan politician, civil servant, diplomat and English language poet. He was also the Diyawadana Nilame of the Sri Dalada Maligawa, Kandy from 1975 to 1985. At the time of death he was serving as the Chairman of The Law and Society Trust in Sri Lanka.

Neelan Tiruchelvam Sri Lankan politician

Neelakandan Tiruchelvam was a Sri Lankan Tamil lawyer, academic, politician and Member of Parliament.

Related Research Articles

TamilNet

TamilNet is a news website that provides news and feature articles on current affairs in Sri Lanka, specifically related to the erstwhile Sri Lankan Civil War. The website was formed by members of the Sri Lankan Tamil community residing in the United States and publishes articles in English, German and French.

The NorthEast Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR) was established on July 9, 2004, in Kilinochchi as part of the 2002 Norway-facilitated peace process to improve human rights in the north east of Sri Lanka. NESOHR functioned in the Tamil areas until the end of 2008 when it was forced to end its operations. During its operations from Vanni, it released a large number of reports on the ongoing atrocities against Tamils. It was relaunched again in 2013 from outside Sri Lanka.

Christopher Weeramantry Sri Lankan judge

Sri Lankabhimanya Christopher Gregory Weeramantry, AM was a Sri Lankan lawyer who was a Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) from 1991 to 2000, serving as its vice-president from 1997 to 2000. Weeramantry was a judge of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka from 1967 to 1972. He was also served as an emeritus professor at Monash University and the president of the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms.

Rajiva Wijesinha, MA, DPhil is a Sri Lankan writer in English, distinguished for his political analysis as well as creative and critical work. An academic by profession for much of his working career, he was most recently Senior Professor of Languages at the University of Sabaragamuwa, Sri Lanka.

The expulsion of non-resident Tamils from Colombo was an incident which took place on June 7, 2007 when 376 ethnic Tamil refugees living in Colombo were deported from the city by the Sri Lankan Police. The evicted were sent back to Jaffna, Vavuniya, Trincomalee and Batticaloa, where they are originally from, in several buses with a police escort. However the buses only went as far as the town of Vavuniya and the evicted Tamils were forced to stay in a detention camp. The President asked those who were evicted to come back to Colombo and ordered an investigation into the incident

LGBT rights in Sri Lanka

LGBTIQ rights inSri Lanka have mostly remained repressed since the colonial era. The island's legal framework lacks the concept of judicial review, which means that the supreme court cannot create or repeal law - at the most it can refuse to enforce law.

National Library and Documentation Services Board is the agency of the government of Sri Lanka which helps maintains all state libraries around the country including the Colombo Library but the management of individual libraries in cities and towns are carried out by the Municipal Council.

Thousands of people have disappeared in Sri Lanka since the 1980s. A 1999 study by the United Nations found that Sri Lanka had the second highest number of disappearances in the world and that 12,000 Sri Lankans had disappeared after being detained by the Sri Lankan security forces. A few years earlier the Sri Lankan government had estimated that 17,000 people had disappeared. In 2003 the Red Cross stated that it had received 20,000 complaints of disappearances during the Sri Lankan Civil War of which 9,000 had been resolved but the remaining 11,000 were still being investigated.

Asoka Milinda Moragoda is a Sri Lankan politician and businessman. He is a former Cabinet Minister and Member of Parliament representing the Colombo District from 2001 to 2010, who served as the Minister of Justice and Law Reform (2009-2010), Minister of Tourism (2007–2009); Minister for Economic Reform, Science and Technology and Deputy Minister for Plan Implementation and Development (2002–2004). His last political post was that of Opposition Leader of the Colombo Municipal Council and Senior Adviser to former President Mahinda Rajapakse.

Amal Jayawardane is a Sri Lankan historian.

Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development organization

The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA) [previously known as Forum-Asia] is a membership-based regional human rights organisation with 58 member organisations in 19 countries across Asia. It is committed to the promotion and protection of all human rights including the right to development.

The South Asia Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR) is a South Asia-focused human rights organization based in Kathmandu whose mission is to "promote respect for universal standards of human rights with emphasis on universality and interdependence of human rights." They view human rights as interlinked with peace and democracy, and their broader program encompasses all these concerns. SAFHR aims to be a forum for dialog between regional human rights organizations and activists.

Basil Fernando Sri Lankan writer and activist

W.J. Basil Fernando is a Sri Lankan jurist, author, poet, human rights activist, editor of Article 2 and Ethics in Action, and a prolific writer. He was educated at St. Anthony's College, Wattala and St. Benedict's College, Kotahena. He earned a LLB from the University of Ceylon in 1972, registered as an Attorney-At-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in 1980 and practised law in Sri Lanka up to the end of 1989. He became a legal adviser to Vietnamese refugees in a UNHCR-sponsored project in Hong Kong. He joined the United Nations Transitional Authority (UNTAC) in 1992 as a senior human rights officer and later also served as the Chief of Legal Assistance to Cambodia of the UN Centre of Human Rights. He is associated with Asian Human Rights Commission and Asian Legal Resource centre, based in Hong Kong since 1994.

<i>Aththa</i>

Aththa was a Sinhala-language daily newspaper, published from Colombo by the Communist Party of Sri Lanka between 1964 and 1995. The name was borrowed from the Russian newspaper Pravda. As of 1971, it had an edition of around 41,000. It had a special Sunday edition. As of the early 1970s, B.A. Siriwardena served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Newton Seneviratne as its news editor and Surath Ambalangoda as its features editor. As of the mid-1980s, H.G.S. Ratnaweera was the editor-in-chief of Aththa.

Equal Ground organization

Equal Ground is a non-profit organization based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, that advocates for political and social rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), intersex and queer people. The organization, established in 2004, claims to be the first organization in Sri Lanka that welcomes people of all sexual orientations and gender identities... The organization was founded by Sri Lankan gay rights activist Rosanna Flamer-Caldera and offers trilingual publications and services. It aims to achieve its goals through political activism, education, personal support, building awareness and through organized community events. It has been working more closely with lesbian, bisexual and transgender women in areas of human rights, law reform, sexual health, and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The organization continues to face many challenges working in Sri Lanka where homosexuality is stigmatized and considered criminal offense that can earn up to ten years of prison under the law. Efforts of the LGBT activists to undo the British colonial law criminalizing sodomy was not repealed, but the law was expanded to include women and the penalty was worsened. Queer groups in Sri Lanka have frequently stated that some of their members have been subjected to harassment—by blackmail or by threats with exposition or arrest—by police and other people, using the legal provision.

Pan Intercultural Arts

Pan is an intercultural arts organization and registered charity based in London, UK, that uses the arts to explore cultural diversity and social change. The main purpose of the organization is to help marginalised young people from all cultures and religions who are at risk of social exclusion to improve personal and interpersonal skills through a range of arts activities including drama, music, film, dance, creative writing and visual arts.

The SOAS School of Law is the law school of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. It is based in Bloomsbury, London, United Kingdom. The SOAS School of Law is the sole law school in the world dedicated to the study of legal systems in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Sexual minorities in Sri Lanka have been counted in recent times as consisting of as little as 0.035% of the population to as high as 19.6%. It is likely that there are around 1,100,000 according to current mapping conventions.


The history of sexual minorities in Sri Lanka covered in this article dates back to a couple of centuries before the start of the Vikram Samvat era, although it is highly likely that archaeology predating this period exists. There are virtually zero historical records of sexual minorities in the Latin script dating prior to colonialism. The concept of Sri Lanka did not exist prior to colonialism, and the term 'lanka' translates to 'island'.

Dr. Sumudu Anopama Atapattu is an international jurist in human rights, environmental and climate change law, and both a Senior Lecturer and Director of Research Centers at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He is an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka, an Affilated Professor at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, and Lead Counsel for Human Rights and Poverty Eradication at the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law.

References

  1. ↑ "The Law & Society Trust (LST) – Publications | Reports". lstlanka.org. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  2. ↑ "Law and Society Trust celebrates 25 years". www.sundaytimes.lk. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  3. ↑ "The Law & Society Trust (LST) – not-for-profit organisation | human rights documentation Sri Lanka, legal research and advocacy in Sri Lanka". lstlanka.org. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  4. ↑ "FORUM-ASIA" . Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  5. ↑ "Programmes – Law & Society Trust-Sri Lanka | Research Unit , Law & Society, Law & the Economy, Law & Governance,Special Projects". lstlanka.org. Retrieved 2019-06-07.
  6. ↑ "The Law & Society Trust (LST) – Library | rare collection of early Sri Lankan legal literature and contemporary archival material". lstlanka.org. Retrieved 2019-06-07.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.