In late December 2025, interim Prime Minister Sushila Karki revealed at an event that her government was on an “achano” (anvil), facing dual pressure from Gen-Z groups and mainstream political parties to resign. She described her administration as a “pendulum,” or as being sandwiched, even as it focused on holding the election scheduled for 5 March 2026.
Undoubtedly, Karki’s government is the result of September 8 and 9 Gen-Z youth movement, which demanded visible change. It ousted the previous KP Sharma Oli government and placed its trust in her as the executive head of the country. Hence, she is accountable for honouring the spirit of the Gen-Z movement by putting the country back on track through good governance, ending impunity and corruption, and holding a free, fair, peaceful and credible general election. However, she is equally responsible for addressing long-overdue transitional justice (TJ) issues and, thereby, the two-decade-long stalled peace process—failures that have entrenched impunity and injustice.
After retiring as chief justice, Sushila Karki was vocal in advocating an end to impunity and justice for victims of the ten-year armed conflict (1996–2006). In a meeting with Gangamaya Adhikari, who was on a hunger strike seeking justice for her son—brutally killed by Maoist cadres during the insurgency—Karki praised her as a “Goddess of Justice.” Notably, Adhikari’s husband, Nanda Prasad Adhikari, died on the 334th day of his hunger strike in 2014 while seeking justice. Karki’s appointment as interim prime minister therefore raised victims’ hopes that their demands for a victim-centric and credible TJ process would finally be met. On the contrary, so far, she has remained indifferent to their plight.
Home Minister Om Prakash Aryal, once a human rights lawyer who defended conflict-related cases for victims, has mysteriously turned his back on them and now ignores the ground reality, seemingly forgetting his own activism. Although he is well aware of the TJ process being in limbo, he has failed to seize the opportunity to address victims’ expectations despite holding a crucial government position.
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Prime Minister Karki appointed retired General Balanda Sharma as foreign minister three weeks prior to Nepal’s fourth-cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR). He was likely recruited for his experience and ability to defend Nepal’s human rights record, including the TJ process, at the UN Human Rights Council UPR session scheduled for 21 January 2026 in Geneva. His past success in coordinating—with the support of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN)—the technical committee that integrated Maoist combatants into the Nepali Army was a key advantage in his appointment to this demanding role.
Sadly, the Nepal government’s absence from the UPR pre-session held in Geneva on 28 November 2025 demonstrated its lack of commitment and further blurred the country’s human rights image at the international level. Unlike previous governments, Sharma is expected to lead Nepal’s delegation at the 51st session of the UPR Working Group without masking the ground reality.
The UPR process is a unique mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council, covering all 193 UN member states, and involves a peer review of all human rights—civil, political, economic, social and cultural—roughly every four and a half years since April 2008. The review is based on interactive dialogue, national reports, parallel reports from non-governmental organisations and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), and recommendations from other member states. It is a cooperative, state-led process aimed at improving human rights on the ground by identifying strengths, challenges and capacity needs. Nepal is now facing its fourth UPR cycle review in Geneva.
During Nepal’s third UPR cycle, the government accepted 196 out of 233 recommendations. These were heavily focused on caste-based discrimination and untouchability, transitional justice, freedom of expression and women’s rights. On TJ issues, despite commitments to ensure justice for conflict-era abuses, the government failed to adequately address key concerns, including enforced disappearances and victims’ rights.
In 2021, while addressing the third UPR cycle, then foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali committed to adhering to international human rights principles and ensuring criminal accountability guided by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), Supreme Court directives, relevant international instruments, victims’ concerns and ground realities. He stated that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Commission of Investigation on Enforced Disappeared Persons (CIEDP) had been constituted and had begun their work, without explaining why previous commissions had failed to deliver justice.
Only a couple of weeks before the UPR session in Geneva, the government unilaterally appointed officials to both commissions for the second time in 2021. This move, based on political power-sharing among three senior leaders—Sher Bahadur Deuba, KP Sharma Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal—completely neglected victims’ rights. Consequently, commissions led by Ganesh Dutta Bhatta (TRC) and Yubaraj Subedi (CIEDP) completed their terms without producing any results, replicating the fate of earlier commissions headed by Surya Kiran Gurung (TRC) and Lokendra Mallik (CIEDP).
Nevertheless, the third amendment to The Enforced Disappearances Enquiry, Truth and Reconciliation Commission Act, 2014, on 29 August 2024, despite existing gaps and ambiguities, generated renewed hope among victims. It was envisioned as a workable legal framework to move the process forward, contingent upon the appointment of credible and trustworthy officials.
However, a few months prior to the Gen-Z movement, the KP Sharma Oli government appointed officials to the TRC and CIEDP, headed by Mahesh Thapa and Lila Devi Gadtola respectively, without meaningful victim consultation. This triggered a boycott of the process due to the absence of victim participation. Victims have since demanded the reconstitution of impartial and credible bodies through a transparent process. Once again, the TJ process has been derailed by the repetition of past mistakes and the short-sightedness of successive governments.
Nepal’s peace process was initiated through a 12-point understanding signed on 22 November 2005 between the then-seven-party alliance and the rebel Maoists during King Gyanendra’s direct autocratic rule. The agreement committed to democratic values and a human rights agenda. Its eighth point pledged full adherence to human rights principles during the implementation of the peace process, thereby building public trust. Following the successful People’s Movement of 2006, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed between the Government of Nepal and the Maoists on 21 November 2006, committing both sides to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), international humanitarian law and fundamental human rights norms, while claiming a “home-grown” process. However, two decades of political manipulation and the present government’s indifference have rendered the future of the peace process deeply uncertain.
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