Biographical Note

Palitha T.B. Kohona of Sri Lanka Elected Chair of Sixth Committee

 

The Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations, Palitha T.B. Kohona, was elected Chair of the Sixth Committee (Legal) on 1 October 2013.  (See Press Release GA/11432.)

Mr. Kohona has been Permanent Representative since September 2009.  Prior to that appointment, Mr. Kohona served as Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Special Adviser to the President on the Peace Process and Secretary-General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, commencing in 2007 and 2006, respectively.

In 2005, Mr. Kohona led the United Nations legal delegation to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the invitation of that country’s Government, having served as Chief of the Organization’s Treaty Section in New York since 1995.

Prior to joining the United Nations, he worked in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia from 1983, heading its Trade and Investment Section under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization, and attached to the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations institutional mechanisms and dispute settlement unit in 1992.

Mr. Kohona led Australia’s delegation to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Trade and Development Board in 1988, and was posted to the Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations in Geneva the following year.

Born in Matale, Sri Lanka, Mr. Kohona holds a doctorate from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.  He also has a Master of Laws degree from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sri Lanka.

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*     This supersedes Press Release BIO/4123 of 11 September 2009.

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