By: A Special Correspondent
The recent call by the National Joint Committee for a “zone of peace” and compensation following the sinking of the IRIS Dena by a US submarine may resonate. But as policy, it risks placing Sri Lanka back on a path that has already proven reputationally damaging, costly and ineffective.
We have been here before — with the X-Press Pearl incident. And the lesson from that experience is not that Sri Lanka should escalate claims more quickly, but that it must consider, assess and evidence them more carefully.
What the NJC proposes looks less like a strategy grounded in law and science but the sadly more familiar pattern of act first and try to substantiate later.
Opportunism over strategy
The NJC’s intervention seems to be driven by timing more than thought or substance. Promoting the idea of a “zone of peace,” elevates this maritime incident into a broader political issue and statement.
There is naturally nothing inherently wrong with asserting national interests. But when legal claims are framed through political opportunity rather than cold evidential and legal review, the result too often is symbolism without substance.
Sri Lanka saw this dynamic unfold in the aftermath of X-Press Pearl, where public demands catalyzed by political opportunism surged ahead of the scientific and technical groundwork required to sustain ambitious claims.
The scientific challenge
The most important — and perhaps least discussed — weakness in Sri Lanka’s X-Press Peal approach was scientific.
Independent analysis, including work by marine ecologist Amelia Wenger, has highlighted real gaps in how environmental damage was assessed after X-Press Pearl. She reported limited baseline data, unclear methodologies and significant difficulties in proving causation to international standards.
This matters because compensation claims are not won on feelings of being wronged or outrage, they are won on clear, cogent and persuasive evidence.
Without robust and transparent science, genuine environmental harm can become legally fragile. If Sri Lanka moves quickly toward compensation demands in another complex incident without first seeking to address these deficiencies, we risk repeating the same error — perhaps this time with politically higher stakes by pointing the finger at a US administration sensitive to challenge and criticism.
The interim miscalculation
Another lesson from X-Press Pearl is the danger of relying on interim claims. Interim frameworks create the appearance of action and outcomes but often signal uncertainty in evidence and weakness in the basis of decision making. Challenge, delay and renegotiation become inevitable as the real picture becomes clear, and often years on, compensation remains contested, uncertain and incomplete.
Yet the NJC’s proposal promotes a similar flawed logic which may satisfy the need to talk tough and be seen to act decisively. But it rarely if ever produces credible and enforceable outcomes.
The reality of enforcement
Perhaps the most serious flaw bites hard on the question of enforceability. Even in the X-Press Pearl case — involving a commercial vessel and the potential to use established maritime liability regimes — the process has been slow and difficult.
The IRIS Dena context is much more complex. Any claim touching on US military action raises issues of sovereign immunity, jurisdiction and geopolitics. To suggest otherwise once again risks creating expectations that cannot be met.
A cycle of grievance
The pattern is becoming familiar: expansive claims, limited evidentiary grounding, rising public expectations, legal and diplomatic pushback, and prolonged, inconclusive outcomes.
The net result is not one of accountability, but one of frustration — and a sense of grievance that outlives the incident itself. Sri Lanka cannot afford to keep repeating this cycle.
A better path
The real lesson of X-Press Pearl is not that Sri Lanka should claim more. It is that it must claim better.
That means investing in internationally recognized and rigorous scientific assessment before public escalation, aligning legal strategy with enforceability from the outset, and distinguishing clearly between political advocacy and litigation.
Until those necessary foundations are in place, calls like the NJC’s risk being less a solution than a rerun.
Sri Lanka deserves accountability when harm is done to its environment and coastal waters. But accountability is not achieved through declarations. It is built — patiently, methodically and credibly.
Anything less is not strategy. It is little more than grandstanding and theatre.
