After the Tsunami Legal Implications of Mass Burials of Unidentified Victims in Sri Lanka 英文参考文献.docVIP

Open access, freely available online Policy Forum After the Tsunami: Legal Implications of Mass Burials of Unidenti?ed Victims in Sri Lanka Clifford Perera O n 26 December 2004, Sri Lanka was affected, along with many other countries in the region, by deadly tsunami waves. The estimated death toll in Sri Lanka was more than 40,000; many more thousands of people were missing and displaced. Sri Lanka had not experienced a disaster of such magnitude in its 2,000 years of recorded history. The administrative, health, and judicial services were simply not able to respond rapidly to the workload demands created by the disaster. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020185.g001 Figure 1. Exhumations Performed in the Southern Province in Search of Missing Foreigners (Photo: Clifford Perera) The disaster itself also highlighted gaps in the laws on death investigation and mass burials, which required the rapid introduction of many emergency regulations and modi?cation of existing laws. This article discusses these gaps, and categorises the post- tsunami events into two phases: acute and secondary. The acute phase concerns the events that occurred during the ?rst week with regard to the management of the deceased; the secondary phase represents the events that took place subsequently. with other South Asian countries, and still uses it, with some modi?cations. The legal provisions for death examinations—has been given in the past to prescribed police authorities. Many such emergency regulations were enacted during the secondary phase of the tsunami in order to meet socio-political requirements. However, there were no speci?c regulations that related to death investigation or disposal of the deceased. investigation are elaborated in Sections 369–373 in the Code of Criminal Procedure, Act 15, of 1979 of Sri Lanka (available at http:??www. lawnet.lk). These sections do not, however, provide any instructions with regard to a mass disaster situation. Under the present system, death inve