The UK's Deputy Prime Minster David Lammy is expected to visit Sri Lanka on Tuesday to meet with the island's leaders.
Lammy will reportedly arrive in Sri Lanka on Tuesday morning and hold talks with Sri Lankan president Anura Kumara Dissanayake, prime minster Harini Amarasuriya and foreign minster Vijitha Herath. He will also be signing an agreement on the Global Charter on Children's Care Reform.
The visit comes just a week after Sri Lankan police shot a Tamil teenager in the head in Jaffna, for allegedly failing to stop his vehicle at a police checkpoint. However, it remains uncertain whether Lammy will address human rights concerns during the brief visit. He has previously spoken extensively on Sri Lanka and on justice for the Tamil people.
During his tenure as Foreign Secretary, Lammy told the Foreign Affairs Committee in July 2025, that the UK government had raised "grave concerns" about the Chemmani mass graves directly with the Sri Lankan government.
When Lammy was further questioned by British MP Uma Kumaran about the referral of Sri Lanka to the International Criminal Court (ICC), Lammy replied that "Sri Lanka is not an ICC state party".
“So, the Court wouldn’t have jurisdiction to investigate any crimes that might be committed. That is the difficulty in what you recommend," he added.
The Deputy Prime Minister has previously called for Sri Lankan human rights abusers to be referred to the ICC.
Read more: UK Shadow Foreign Secretary calls for Sri Lanka to be referred to ICC
Also in 2024, he spoke of how the harvest festival of Thai Pongal, “is also of course a time for us to remember the sacrifices made by the Tamil people for self-determination, for peace, and for justice in Sri Lanka”.
In a statement marking the 14th anniversary of the genocide at Mullivaikkal, Lammy said:
"We urge the British government to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tamils and consider the recommendations of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to refer perpetrators of these crimes to the International Criminal Court" Lammy stated.
In 2022, Lammy explicitly called for the UK to refer Sri Lankan war criminals to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Speaking at an event, he said, “I marched for sanctions on apartheid South Africa... I am demanding sanctions be imposed on Sri Lankan war criminals.”
He added, “We believe in internationalism, multilateralism, and the rule of law. That means you must be held to account for atrocities committed against innocent, decent people. As a fellow member of a minority community, I pay tribute to the Tamils.”
Read more: British lawmakers and Tamils celebrate Pongal in Westminster
While the UK continues to lead several resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), accountability has stalled in Geneva. The most recent resolution, adopted in October 2025, renews the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights for another year, allowing it to keep gathering evidence of human rights violations in Sri Lanka that could be used in future war crimes trials.
Sri Lanka has consistently rejected these resolutions, with the current Sri Lankan government insisting that domestic mechanisms will ensure justice and accountability. Tamils have called for stronger measures to hold Sri Lanka responsible for the Mullivaikkal genocide, including ICC referral.
The end of the armed conflict in May 2009, saw the massacre of 169,796 Tamils by Sri Lanka's security forces. During the final months of the conflict, the Sri Lankan military committed a litany of war crimes including the shelling of government designated "No Fire Zones", hospitals and food lines. The atrocities are increasingly being recognised around the world as a genocide.