Global Models, Victim Disconnect and Demands for International Intervention: The Dilemma of Decoloniality and Transitional Justice in Sri Lanka.

This article examines Sri Lanka's transitional justice process through a decolonial analytical lens to identify persistent colonial power structures, including epistemic coloniality, that shaped its failure. It highlights three key insights: a disconnection between victims' holistic justice needs and the internationally dominant transitional justice model; ethno-religious challenges, particularly victims' distrust of the state as a neutral justice provider; and a paradox wherein victims simultaneously rejected the imposed framework yet demanded stronger international involvement. The study argues that the global transitional justice framework, rooted in Western liberal assumptions and presented as universal, marginalized local victim perspectives and failed to address Sri Lanka's complex ethno-religious context, underscoring the need for deeper epistemic reform and more inclusive, bottom-up approaches in transitional justice scholarship and practice.