Sri Lankan lawyer and academic Radhika Coomaraswamy (born 1953) has written and published extensively on issues such as women and conflict, minority rights and governance. Through her work, this brilliant scholar has created new conceptual and theoretical frameworks for understanding women and conflict.
Radhika Coomaraswamy was a former Under Secretary General and The Special Representative on Children and Armed Conflict. She was the lead author of the Global Study on the Implementation of Resolution 1325 published in 2015 and was the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women from 1994-2003.
Professor Coomaraswamy is the former UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict. Before that, she was the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women.
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, 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 the younger daughter of civil servant Rajendra Coomaraswamy (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.