Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 17 September 1953)is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as the

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations An under-secretary-general of the United Nations (USG) is a senior official within the United Nations System, normally appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the secretary-general for a renewable term of four years. Under-s ...

, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict until 13 July 2012. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her to the position in April 2006. She was nominated to the Constitutional Council (Sri Lanka) as a civil representative on 10 September 2015. In 2017, after atrocities against the Rohingya people, she was appointed a Member of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on Myanmar.

Early life and education

Coomaraswamy was born on 17 September 1953 in Colombo,

Ceylon Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. She was the younger daughter of civil servant

Rajendra Coomaraswamy Rajendra may refer to: * Rajendra (name), a male given name (including a list of persons with the name) * ''Rajendra'' (moth), a moth genus * Rajendra Radar Rajendra is a passive electronically scanned array radar developed by the Defence ...

(Roving Raju) and his wife Wijeyamani. Her paternal grandfather C. Coomaraswamy was a civil servant and her maternal grandfather S. K. Wijeyaratnam was chairman of Negombo Urban Council. She has one elder brother,

Indrajit Coomaraswamy Indrajit Coomaraswamy ( ta, இந்திரஜித் குமாரசுவாமி, si, ඉන්ද්‍රජිත් කුමාරස්වාමි; born 3 April 1950) is a Sri Lankan economist and the 14th Governor of the Cen ...

. She is a graduate of the

United Nations International School The United Nations International School (UNIS) is a private international school in New York City, established in 1947. Many members of the United Nations staff arriving with young families found unexpected difficulties with New York's school sys ...

in New York City. She received her B.A. from Yale University, her J.D. from Columbia University, an LLM from Harvard University and

honorary An honorary position is one given as an honor, with no duties attached, and without payment. Other uses include: * Honorary Academy Award, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, United States * Honorary Aryan, a status in Nazi Germany ...

PhDs from

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

, the

Katholieke Universiteit Leuven KU Leuven (or Katholieke Universiteit Leuven) is a Catholic research university in the city of Leuven, Belgium. It conducts teaching, research, and services in computer science, engineering, natural sciences, theology, humanities, medicine, l ...

, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Essex and the

CUNY School of Law The City University of New York School of Law (CUNY School of Law) is a public law school in New York City. It was founded in 1983 as part of the City University of New York. CUNY School of Law was established as a public interest law school wi ...

Career

Coomaraswamy is a lawyer by training and formerly the Chairperson of the

Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission Shri (; , ) is a Sanskrit term denoting resplendence, wealth and prosperity, primarily used as an honorific. The word is widely used in South and Southeast Asian languages such as Marathi, Malay (including Indonesian and Malaysian), Javanese, ...

, is an internationally known human rights advocate who has worked as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (1994-2003). In her reports to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, she has written on violence in the family, violence in the community, violence against women during armed conflict and the problem of international trafficking. A strong advocate on women's rights, she has intervened on behalf of women throughout the world seeking clarification from governments in cases involving violence against women. She also compiled a report on "

comfort women Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. The term "comfort women" is a translation of the Japanese '' ia ...

", citing

Seiji Yoshida Weekly Shincho, March 13, 2013, page 25 was a Japanese novelist and member of the Japanese Communist Party. He has published under a variety of pen names, including , , and . He wrote "My war crimes", which is the origin of a dispute over comfor ...

's remark (his testimony was later judged to be a fabrication), and has conducted field visits to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and Korea on the problem of "

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

and Indonesia with regard to violence against women in war time, Poland, India, Bangladesh and Nepal on the issue of trafficking, the United States on women in prisons, Brazil on

domestic violence Domestic violence (also known as domestic abuse or family violence) is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. ''Domestic violence'' is often used as a synonym for ''intimate partner ...

, and Cuba on violence against women generally.

Appointments

Coomaraswamy was appointed Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in May 2003. She has served as a member of the Global Faculty of the New York University School of Law. She also taught a summer course at New College, Oxford, every year on the International Human Rights of Women from 1996-2006. She has published widely, including two books on constitutional law and numerous articles on ethnic studies and the status of women. In 2014, Coomaraswamy was appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as lead author on a Global Study on the implementation of UNSC resolution 1325, on women, peace and security. The Global Study will be presented to the Secretary-General and to the public in October, 2015, when the Security Council will conduct a High-level Review to assess progress at the global, regional and national levels in implementing resolution 1325 (2000). In January 2008, the United Nations requested that Coomaraswamy, as special representative for children in armed conflict, be allowed to observe the American military tribunal of

child soldier Children (defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child as people under the age of 18) have been recruited for participation in military operations and campaigns throughout history and in many cultures. Children in the military, includ ...

Omar Khadr, but she was denied entrance. In May 2011, Coomaraswamy gave a lecture entitled "Children and Armed Conflict: The International Response" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series. In November 2011, Coomaraswamy gave a lectured entitled "Human Rights: Impact of Armed Conflict on Children" through Monmouth University's Institute for Global Understanding's United Nations Academic Impact Lecture Series.

Other activities

Open Society Justice Initiative Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with a sta ...

, Member of the BoardBoard of the Open Society Justice Initiative

Open Society Foundations Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a Grant (money), grantmaking network founded and chaired by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the wo ...

Recognition

The

President of Sri Lanka The President of Sri Lanka ( si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා ජනාධිපති ''Śrī Laṃkā Janādhipathi''; ta, இலங்கை சனாதிபதி ''Ilankai janātipati'') is the head of state and head of government of t ...

conferred on her the title of Deshamanya, a prestigious national honour. She has also received the International Law Award of the American Bar Association, the Human Rights Award of the

International Human Rights Law Group Global Rights is an international human rights capacity-building non-governmental organization (NGO). Founded in Washington, D.C., in 1978 with the name International Human Rights Law Group, the organization changed its name to Global Rights: P ...

, the

Bruno Kreisky Award The Bruno Kreisky Prize for Human Rights is a biennial award created in October 1976 on the occasion of the 65th birthday of Bruno Kreisky. The laureates are rewarded for their achievements in the field of human rights. The prize was divided in 199 ...

of 2000, the Leo Ettinger Human Rights Prize of the University of Oslo, Archbishop Oscar Romero Award of the University of Dayton, the William J. Butler Award from the University of Cincinnati, and the Robert S. Litvack Award from McGill University. In November 2005, in recognition of her service to the country and the world.

References