Radhika Coomaraswamy

Radhika Coomaraswamy (born  September 17, 1953 in Colombo ) is a Sri Lankan lawyer and expert in the field of human rights . She served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on violence against women from 1994 to 2003 and as the UN Under-Secretary-General and Commissioner on Children and Armed Conflict from 2006 to 2012. She teaches international law at the School of Law at New York University .

Life

Radhika Coomaraswamy was born in Colombo in 1953 and initially studied at Yale University , where she received a BA in 1974 . They also acquired three years later at the Columbia University a jurisprudential degree in JD and 1981 at the Harvard University an LL.M.

From 1982 she worked as deputy director and from 1989 as director of the International Center for Ethnic Studies in Colombo and, from 2003, also as chairwoman of the human rights commission in her home country. From 1994 to 2003 she served as the United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on violence against women. Kofi Annan , the then UN Secretary-General , appointed her in April 2006 as Under-Secretary-General and Commissioner for Children and Armed Conflict. Annan's successor, Ban Ki-moon , confirmed her in that office in February of the following year.

Awards

Radhika Coomaraswamy received various prizes and honors in recognition of her commitment to human rights , including the International Human Rights Lawyer Award of the American Bar Association in 1995 and the Bruno Kreisky Prize and the Goler T. Butcher Medal in 2000 . The Amherst College , the University of Edinburgh , the University of Essex , the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the University of Ulster awarded her an honorary doctorate .

Works (selection)

• A Manual on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Colombo 1988
• Introduction to Social Theory. Colombo and New Delhi 1994 (as co-editor)
• Reinventing International Law: Women's Rights as Human Rights in the International Community. Cambridge MA 1997
• Peace Work: Women, Armed Conflict, and Negotiation. New Delhi 2004 (as co-editor)
• Constellations of Violence: Feminist Interventions in South Asia. New Delhi 2008 (as co-editor)
• The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict - Towards Universal Ratification , 18 The International Journal of Children's Rights 535, 2010

literature

• Radhika Coomaraswamy. In: Charles A. Gunawardena: Encyclopedia Of Sri Lanka. Second edition. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi 2005, ISBN 1-932705-48-1 , pp. 88/89
• Coomaraswamy Radhika. In: Ernest Kay: The World Who's Who of Women. 11th edition. International Biographical Center, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-948875-80-1 , p. 204

Web links

• Radhika Coomaraswamy, New York University School of Law
• Office of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict: Radhika Coomaraswamy - Biographical Note (English, with picture)