Prevention as a Balancing Practice. The International Politics of Transitional Justice in Sri Lanka

Which factors shape diplomatic interventions in conflict prevention in state-society conflicts? External interventions in state-society conflicts have become a common practice in international politics. Yet we know relatively little about the diplomacy of prevention, in contrast to military deployments, development programming, multilateral diplomacy or high-level engagement by top policymakers. Diplomats and UN officials posted to conflict-affected countries deal with the challenges of conflict prevention on an everyday basis. Taking a practice theory perspective, this paper conceptualizes the ways in which diplomatic actors posted to conflict-affected countries engage in prevention as a series of balancing acts. Their institutional and personal dispositions, knowledge production, and mastery of the diplomatic game constitutes a dynamic policy of engagement. This policy oscillates in three ways: between transformation and stabilization, between international and local ownership, and between dialogue and confrontation. The international politics of the transitional justice process in Sri Lanka illustrates these dynamics vividly. With the election of a “good governance” government in January 2015, a window of opportunity opened for a broad reform agenda that focused on transitional justice, constitutional change, and economic reform. The legacy of international pressure, in particular through the UN Human Rights Council, led the government to commit to a comprehensive transitional justice programme. Diplomats from countries that had pushed for this commitment at the multilateral level found themselves in a delicate position. They were keen to support the government, including through trade facilitation and development schemes. When it became increasingly clear that the buy-in for a transformative reform programme of the state was limited to very few individuals within the government, international actors ran out of diplomatic options to nudge a friendly government forward on a human rights and transitional justice agenda. Lobbying for a quicker and more thorough reform process had to be balanced with the need to maintain the cohesion of the national unity government and keep the Sinhalese nationalist challenge at bay. International pressure and expertise in drafting the legislation for the transitional justice institutions was kept in check with the focus on Sri Lankan civil society, some leading members of which became part of the government’s reform institutions. The sequencing approach adopted by the government blunted international instruments to hold it to account to its international commitments. In the end, high enthusiasm for notional reforms and the linkage between the great number of reform projects in a short time span reduced the overall impact of international diplomacy.