About this Event
In this event, marking the launch of the latest book by QUB law lecturer and Institute Fellow Dr Nikhil Narayan, Guarantees of Non-Recurrence in Transitional Justice: Lessons from Sri Lanka (Routledge 2027), Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy, Professor Ron Dudai and Ms Bhavani Fonseka will be in conversation with Professor Kieran McEvoy to discuss the principle and practice of guarantees of non-recurrence as a central pillar of transitional justice, and the developments and prospects for peace, justice and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.
The conversation will explore the challenges and opportunities for interpreting and applying guarantees of non-recurrence in contemporary post-conflict societies like Sri Lanka and beyond. The speakers will introduce emerging themes, developments and experiences of activism to make sense of the past, present and future of the transitional justice field, the duty to prevent recurrence of violence and atrocity, and the grand ambition of ‘Never Again’.
The discussion will be followed by a Q&A and will conclude with an informal reception (drinks and refreshments provided).
In his latest book, Guarantees of Non-Recurrence in Transitional Justice: Lessons from Sri Lanka (Routledge 2027), Institute Fellow and QUB law lecturer Dr Nikhil Narayan examines the core but under-scrutinised transitional justice pillar of guarantees of non-recurrence, from the perspective of a key but under-explored Global South context in Sri Lanka.
Transitional justice’s grand ambition is embodied in the slogan: ‘Never again’ – never again should societies endure the atrocities of war and mass violence. However, as conflicts proliferate in the 21st century, transitional justice has thus far failed to ensure states take the necessary steps to remedy their root causes – that is, those measures framed as guarantees of non-recurrence.
Through extensive fieldwork, the book critically interrogates the extent to which guarantees of non-recurrence can effectively advance socio-political transformation towards a more comprehensive justice. Embedded in interdisciplinary scholarship across transitional justice, human rights, peacebuilding, development, political economy and regional studies, the book argues for a re-prioritising of guarantees of non-recurrence within transitional justice and advances a novel approach based on applied political economy to achieve a more transformative version of guarantees of non-recurrence.
Purchase the book here.
The event is co-hosted by the School of Law and Queen’s Institute for Peace, Security and Justice, Queen’s University Belfast.
Dr Radhika Coomaraswamy is an internationally recognized human rights scholar and lawyer. Since June 2022, she has served as a member of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia. In 2017 she was appointed to the UN Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar and also as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Board of Advisors on Mediation. Before this, in Sri Lanka, Coomaraswamy was Director of the International Centre for Ethnic Studies (1982-2005), Chairperson of the Sri Lankan Human Rights Commission (2003-2006), and member of the Sri Lankan Constitutional Council (2015-2018). Internationally, she served as UN Under-Secretary General and Special Representative of the Secretary General on Children and Armed Conflict from 2006 until her retirement in 2012. She was the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (1994-2003), and led in 2014, at the request of the UN Secretary General, the review of the fifteen year implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security. Coomaraswamy has received numerous honorary degrees and honors, including the Deshamanya, Sri Lanka’s second-highest national honour. In 2013 she had the privilege of being invited to deliver the keynote Grotius Lecture of the American Association of International Law.
Professor Ron Dudai is a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at the Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, and the Law School. Professor Dudai’s research is focused on the intersection of human rights, transitional justice and conflict-transformation. His monograph Penality in the Underground: The IRA’s Pursuit of Informers was published by Oxford University Press (2022), and his articles have been published in e.g. British Journal of Sociology, British Journal of Criminology, Political Studies, and International Journal of Transitional Justice. He is co-author of the recent major report Bitter Legacy: State Impunity in the Northern Ireland Conflict, a former co-editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice, and a board member of several human rights organizations.
Bhavani Fonseka is a Senior Research Consultant and Attorney at Law at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka. Presently she serves as a member of the Business and Human Rights Sub-Committee of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka. Her work has revolved around assisting victims and affected populations across Sri Lanka, legal and policy reforms, public interest litigation (PIL) and advocacy internationally. She recently authored the report ‘“Not Genuine with Justice”: Sri Lanka’s Lack of Will to Prosecute Past Abuses’ for Human Rights Watch. She edited Elusive Justice & Emblematic Cases in Sri Lanka (2023) and Transitional Justice in Sri Lanka: Moving Beyond Promises (2017), and co-edited Salient Aspects of Public Interest Litigation Jurisprudence in Sri Lanka (2023). Bhavani is on the editorial boards of the International Journal on Transitional Justice and the Women, Peace & Security Series- De Gruyter Press. She was previously an adviser to the 2016 Consultation Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms and drafting committee member for the 2017-2021 National Human Rights Action Plan. She was an Asia Society Fellow, Mason Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and an Eisenhower Fellow and a speaker at TedX Colombo.
Professor Kieran McEvoy is the Chair of Peace, Security and Justice at the Queen’s Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice and a Professor of Law and Transitional Justice at Queen’s University Belfast. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He has authored or co-authored four books, co-edited eight books or special issues and over seventy journal articles and scholarly book chapters. His most recent book (with Professors Louise Mallinder and Anna Bryson), Lawyers in Conflict and Transition (CUP, 2023), examines the efforts of human rights lawyers across the world to defend the rule of law in increasingly authoritarian circumstances. A longstanding human rights activist, his research interests include human rights, transitional justice, restorative justice, prisons, apologies, armed groups and the role of lawyers. He recently completed a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship (2023-2026) working on a project on Apologies, Political Violence and Dealing with the Past. Professor McEvoy established the Routledge Transitional Justice series in 2011 and continues as series editor.
Dr Nikhil Narayan is a lecturer at the Queen’s University Belfast School of Law. His research and teaching interests focus on transitional justice, international human rights and humanitarian law, international criminal justice, mass atrocity prevention, public international law, post-conflict constitutional reform, conflict transformation and the rule of law, particularly in the Global South. He is an experienced scholar and practitioner with over two decades living and working across Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Prior to QUB, he was the senior international legal adviser for the International Commission of Jurists, based in South Asia; Program Director for the Public International Law & Policy Group, in Syria, Tanzania and Somaliland; and legal researcher at the Centre for Policy Alternatives, Sri Lanka. Nikhil is a Fellow of the Queen’s Institute for Peace, Security and Justice; justice expert adviser for the UK FCDO’s Civilian Stabilisation Group; Senior Peace Fellow with the Public International Law & Policy Group; and member of the New York State Bar Association.
Event venue & nearby stays
Canada Room & Council Chamber, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom
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