From Reasonable Chastisement To Dignity: Sri Lanka And The Transitional Problem In International Human Rights Law On Corporal Punishment
Budwin Ishara Siriwardena, PhD Candidate in International Law, Xiamen University
ABSTRACT
This article argues that Sri Lanka’s recent developments on the corporal punishment of children are not merely a local story of incomplete compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) but evidence of a wider transitional problem in international human rights law. Sri Lanka illustrates the shift from a proportionality or “reasonable chastisement” model, which tolerates corrective violence, to a dignity-based CRC model grounded in the child’s status as a rights-holder. While existing scholarship establishes the dignity critique, Sri Lanka adds a distinct perspective by showing how a legal system may abolish judicial corporal punishment and constrain school punishment, yet remain attached to parental authority, proportionality and general assault logic. Reading the CRC, General Comment No. 8 and N.B. v. Georgia, the article argues that the international human rights framework requires not only explicit prohibition and equal protection but also an institutional transition from punitive discipline to non- violent forms of correction consistent with the child’s dignity.
Keywords: Corporal punishment; children’s rights; Sri Lanka; human dignity; school discipline; international human rights law; Convention on the Rights of the Child
