Deshamanya Radhika Coomaraswamy was born on 17 September 1953 and is a Sri Lankan lawyer, diplomat and human rights advocate who served as an Under-Secretary General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict from 2006 to 2012.
16 Facts About Radhika Coomaraswamy
1.
2.
Radhika Coomaraswamy's appointment marked the first time that violence against women was conceptualized as a political issue internationally.
3.
Radhika Coomaraswamy co-founded the International Centre for Ethnic Studies in 1982.
4.
Radhika Coomaraswamy was nominated to the Constitutional Council as a civil representative on 10 September 2015.
5.
Radhika Coomaraswamy was the younger daughter of civil servant Rajendra Coomaraswamy and his wife Wijeyamani.
6.
Radhika Coomaraswamy's paternal grandfather C Coomaraswamy was a civil servant and her maternal grandfather S K Wijeyaratnam was chairman of Negombo Urban Council.
7.
Radhika Coomaraswamy is a graduate of the United Nations International School in New York City.
8.
Radhika Coomaraswamy was a student of the late United States Supreme Court Justice and pioneer feminist litigator Ruth Bader Ginsburg at Columbia.
9.
Radhika Coomaraswamy is a lawyer by training and formerly the Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission, is an internationally known human rights advocate who has worked as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.
10.
Radhika Coomaraswamy compiled a report on "comfort women", citing Seiji Yoshida's remark, and has conducted field visits to Japan and Korea on the problem of "comfort women", Rwanda, Colombia, Haiti 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, and Cuba on violence against women generally.
11.
Radhika Coomaraswamy was appointed Chairperson of the Sri Lanka Human Rights Commission in May 2003.
12.
Radhika Coomaraswamy has served as a member of the Global Faculty of the New York University School of Law.
13.
Radhika Coomaraswamy has published, including two books on constitutional law and numerous articles on ethnic studies and the status of women.
14.
In 2014, Radhika 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.
15.
In November 2011, Radhika 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.
16.
Radhika Coomaraswamy has received the International Law Award of the American Bar Association, the Human Rights Award of the International Human Rights Law Group, the Bruno Kreisky Award 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.