Law and Society Trust (LST)
14 December 2016 10:55 am

Sri Lanka

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://www.lstlanka.org/

Tel: +94-11 2684845 / +94-11 2691228 / +94-11 2684853 Fax: +94-11 2686843

About:

The Law & Society Trust (LST) is a not for profit organisation engaged in human rights documentation, legal research and advocacy based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, which was founded in 1982. Our aim is to use rights based strategies in research, documentation and advocacy in order to promote and protect human rights, enhance public accountability and respect for the rule of law. Some of our main activities include legal education and skills training, publications, rights awareness raising, dissemination of information, networking and coalition building at a national and international level.

Areas of work:

• Democracy, Governance and Rule of Law,
• Gender equality,
• Environment, food safety and food security,
• Constitutionalism and public law,
• Peacebuilding and reconciliation, and
• Poverty and social injustice.

Main lines of work:

The Law and Society Trust is committed to its vision of ‘a society which upholds human rights and dignity for all, free of discrimination, social injustice and violence’. LST’s overall strategic goal and mission is to ‘promote the full realisation of the Rule of Law, justifiability of rights and public accountability by effectively engaging in research,
documentation and advocacy’.

Within this overall strategic goal, the strategic objective is (1) to be a leader in national level policy and legislative changes, (2) to engineer changes in perceptions, attitudes and traditions which adversely affect human rights and prevent the adoption of a human rights based approach, and (3) to make space for human rights discourse and to empower and build the capacity of rights holders. LST’s key priorities and themes for the next five years are (1) democracy, governance and the rule of law, (2) gender equality, (3) environment, food safety and food security, (4) constitutionalism and public law, (5) peace building and reconciliation, and (6) poverty and social injustice.

The thematic area which is described in this proposal contains the overall strategic goal of advancing reconciliation so that all citizens of Sri Lanka can live with each other in peace. This encompasses a gamut of rights from Freedom of Expression (FoE), religion, right to life, gender equality; addressing of alleged atrocities committed during the violent conflict until its end in May 2009; addressing issues of enforced disappearances, custodial deaths and other tools of state repression of human rights. It also contains actions which are directed at reducing inequity and inequality in society. The actions herein are relevant across LST’s thematic areas.

The three main intervention strategies of the Law and Society Trust are as follows:
• Research and analysis of laws, policies, regulations and related actions,
• Advocacy through sharing of research findings, discussions, recommendations for laws amendments and other related actions, and
• Capacity building through trainings, workshops and related actions and interventions.

Contact Person:

Dinushika Dissanayake (Executive Director): [email protected]

Address:

No. 3, Kynsey Terrace, Colombo 08, Western, Sri Lanka