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Father A.
I. Bernard
 Father
A. I. Bernard holds a BPh,LPh,BTh,LTh (India),a
Post-Grad Dip in Human Rights & Education
(University of London) and MA (University of
London). He is the chairman- Justice & Peace
Commission- Catholic Church of Jaffna (from 1996 to
date), Advisor- Consortium of Humanitarian
Agencies-Jaffna (2004 to date), Vice President-
People's Council for & Good Will-Jaffna (2004 to
date), Director-Centre for Peace & Human Rights
Culture- Jaffna (2004 to date) and the Editor-Urimai
Noku- Centre for Peace & Human Rights
Culture-Jaffna.
Dr. Joseph A. Chandrakanthan
 Dr.
Joseph A. Chandrakanthan, BTh, MTh, M.Phil. (Gnana
Deepa University, Pune, India), L.Th., ThD (St. Paul
University, Ottawa) PhD (University of Ottawa) was
Senior Lecturer and later Associate Professor of
Christian Studies and Ethics and Head of the
Department of Christian and Islamic Studies at the
State University of Jaffna in Sri Lanka. (1980 to
1996).
From
1996-1999 he was Professor of Humanities and
Ethics at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada
From 1999 he serves as Consultant in Bioethics at
the Centre for Clinical Ethics and the University of
Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics and Associate
Professor in the Centre for the Study of Religion at
the University of Toronto. He also teaches at the
University of St. Michael�s College and at the
Toronto Graduate School of Theology of the
University of Toronto. His book entitled
The Origin and Development of Sri Lankan
Tamil Nationalism co-authored with Professor A.
J. Wilson was published in 2001 by the University of
Washington.
Mr.Tyrol Ferdinands
 Mr.
Tyrol Ferdinands serves as Managing Trustee (2001 to
date) of the initiative for political and conflict
transformation (INPACT) a Colombo based trust that
takes a group rights based approach and operates
island wide on issues of political transformation
engaging with and enabling political parties and
groups . He is the Founding General Secretary
(1995-2000) of the National Peace Council of Sri
Lanka and has served Vice President, Secretary etc)
in the Ceylon Bank Employees Union (CBEU)
Dr. Nimalka Fernando
 Dr.
Nimalka Fernando has been a student activist
and involved in human rights advocacy and training
workshops since 1970's. As a lawyer she has been
involved in court work and professional services
relating to grass-root level Human rights
activities. The repressive political period of the
1980�s was her training ground for advocacy. She had
been the General Secretary of Student Christian
Movement of Sri Lanka in 1978 � 1989. She served as
the Secretary of Development Commission of the
National Christian Council of Sri Lanka and as a
member of the Executive Committee of the Movement
for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality and a Research
Assistant of Voice of Women (Free Trade Zone Women
Worker�s project) in Sri Lanka in 1980 � 1981.
She
served as a Regional Co-coordinator in Asia Pacific
for Women & Law Development from 1989 to 1994 based
in Malaysia and also the co-coordinator for Women's
Human Rights Project in the post Vienna Project of
the APWLD based in Colombo up to 1996.
Dr.Georg
Frerks
 Dr.
Georg Frerks is a rural sociologist with a PhD from
Wageningen University, The Netherlands. He worked
for nearly 20 years at the Dutch Ministry of Foreign
Affairs in different capacities both at Headquarters
and in the field. Currently he holds a Chair on
Conflict Prevention and Conflict Management at
Utrecht University as well as a Chair on Disaster
studies at Wageningen University, the Netherlands.
Frerks� research interests and publications relate
to vulnerability, policy aspects of conflict and
disaster management and the interface between
intervening organisations and local populations. In
his work he pays attention to issues of local coping
and resilience. Frerks carried out his PhD research
on Sri Lanka and has published on the conflict in
the island and more recently on the response to the
tsunami.
Dr.
Jonathan Goodhand
 Dr.
Jonathan Goodhand is
Lecturer in
Development Practice, at SOAS, University of London.
He
studied at the Universities of Birmingham and
Manchester, with qualifications in education as well
as development. He worked for some years managing
humanitarian and development programmes in conflict
situations in Afghanistan/Pakistan and Sri Lanka,
and has extensive experience as a researcher and
advisor in South and Central Asia for a range of
NGOs and aid agencies, including DFID, SDC, ILO and
UNDP. His research interests include the political
economy of aid and conflict, NGOs and peacebuilding
and �post conflict� resolution. Publications include
Aid, Conflict and Peacebuilding in Afghanistan. What
Lessons can be Learned?(with H Atmar),
75pp. International Alert (UK). ISBN 01898702, 2002.
and Aid, Conflict & Peacebuilding in Sri
Lanka 2000 - 2005, (with B. Klem, D. Fonseka, D.
Keethaponkalan, S. Sardesi) Asia Foundation, US,
2005.
Mr.
Vasu Gounden
 Mr.Vasu
Gounden is the Founder and Executive Director of the
African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of
Disputes (ACCORD). He is a mediator, trainer and
researcher in the field of conflict resolution. He
obtained a LL.B. degree in South Africa in 1986 and
practiced as a human rights and trade union lawyer.
In 1989 he took up a Fulbright Scholarship to
complete his LLM at Georgetown Law School in
Washington D.C. In 1990 he served as a Senior Fellow
at the National Institute for Dispute Resolution in
Washington D.C. In 2000 Gounden completed the Senior
Executive Programme of the Harvard and Wits Business
Schools. He has served on several Government
commissions and independent bodies. In 1992 he was
appointed as an expert advisor to the South African
National Peace Secretariat. He was one of two
persons nominated by the South African Government to
serve on the �Good Offices of the Secretary General
of the Commonwealth� to mediate in international
conflicts.
Ms.Jezima Ismail
 Ms.
Jezima Ismail holds a BA (University of Ceylon), MA
(McGill University) and Diploma on TEFL (University
of Sydney). She has 32 years of teaching experience
of which 13 years were spent as the Principal of
Muslim Ladies College. She has been a member of the
National Committee on Women for the last 6 years, A
Chancellor of South Eastern University, Member of
the Public Services Commission, Governor-Marga
Institute, Founder & Chair of Academy of Adult
Education for Women, Vice Chair of IWITHI Trust,
Media-Member of Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation &
Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, Board Member of
the Management-Centre for Human Rights and
University of Colombo. She has won several awards
such as Deshabandu, Lion's, Presidential Award for
Education and Ambassador for Peace.
Mr.
Victor Ivan
 Mr.
Victor Ivan is the editor of a weekly Sinhala
newspaper published in Sri Lanka. He is a
social activist and a founder member of the Free
Media movement of Sri Lanka. He successfully
challenged at the Geneva HRC the law of criminal
defamation which existed in Sri Lanka. He has
written and published 10 books on various subjects,
including the �Challenge of Tenant Cultivation�,
1979 (Sinhala), �Freedom, National Integration, and
the Family Struggle in Politics� 1999 (Sinhala) and
�An Unfinished Struggle�An Investigative Exposure of
the Sri Lankan judiciary and the Chief Justice� 2003
(Sinhala/English)
Ms. Vinothini Kanapathipillai
 Ms.
Vinothini Kanapathipillai has several years of
experience as a political journalist reporting on
Sri Lanka�s politics and conflict. She has worked as
news editor and broadcaster at the London-based IBC
radio (2000-2001) and is Deputy Editor of Tamil
Guardian, a not-for-profit expatriate newspaper. She
was attached as a translator to the LTTE federalism
study tour to several European countries in 2003.
She is presently a consultant with a blue-chip
management consultancy, utilising her degrees in
Commerce and Law.
Dr.
Sumanasiri Liyanage
 Dr.
Sumanasiri Liyanage teaches political economy at the
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. His
principal research interests include social
movements, social justice, and critical social
theory. He is a critical participant of Sri
Lankan civil society initiatives for peace and
conflict transformation and a regular columnist for
Sinhala and English newspapers.
Dr.Clem McCartney,
Consultant,
Berghof Foundation
Mr. Viraj Mendis
 Mr.Viraj
Mendis is the chair-person of the International
Human Rights Association in Bremen Germany � a
refugee based organisation. As a Sinhalese he has
actively supported unconditionally the oppressed
Tamil people�s right to self determination since
1980.
Mr.
Suthaharan Nadarajah
 Mr.
Suthaharan Nadarajah is a doctoral candidate with
the Department of Politics and International
Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies,
University of London. His research explores the
international system as a socializing and
subject-producing device, using the conflict in Sri
Lanka as a case study.
Dr. Vijitha Nanayakkara
 Dr.
Vijitha Nanayakkara is Professor of Development
Sociology at Peradeniya University, Sri Lanka
Professor A M Navaratna-Bandara
 Professor
A M Navaratna-Bandara, B.A. (Ceylon), M.A.
(Peradeniya), D. Phil (York), teaches political
science, public policy and public administration at
the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka since1974.
At present he is the Director of the Centre for the
Study of Human Rights, University of Peradeniya. In
2001, 2004 & 2005 he served as the Director of the
National Integration Programme Unit (NIPU), a
project funded by the Royal Norwegian Government,
affiliated to the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs
and National Integration. Since 1993 he has
been engaged in civil society campaign for political
solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka and has
written extensively to the new papers in Sri Lanka
advocating a political solution to the ethnic
problem in Sri Lanka. He has several academic
publications to his credit including Management of
Ethnic Secessionist Conflict; The Big Neighbour
syndrome, Dartmouth Publishing Company Ltd.,
Aldershot, England, (1995) and �The Peace Process
and the Real Losers�, in Jayadeva Uyangoda and
Maurine Perera (eds.), Sri Lanka�s Peace Process �
2002, Critical Perspectives, Social Scientists,
Association, Colombo, (144-148) � (2003)
Professor John P.Neelsen
 Professor
John P.Neelsen (1943 Berlin/Germany), M.A., Ph.D. is
Professor., Dept. of Sociology, Tuebingen
University/Germany. Teaching experience: Banaras
(India), Zurich (Switzerland), Nancy (France) and
different universities in Germany (Berlin, Bremen,
etc.) Member Scientific Board: World Centre
for Peace, Freedom and Human Rights, Verdun/France.
ATTAC/Germany. Rosa-Luxemburg-Foundation,
Berlin/Germany. Research and publications
on: North-South Relations; Sociology of
Development; Human Rights; Social Inequality; Case
studies on India and Sri Lanka. Six years research
and field experience in South Asia.
Dr. Robert Nopers ,
Director, Berghof
Foundation, Sri Lanka
Mr. Ana Pararajasingham
 Mr.
Ana Pararajasingham is an Australia based management
consultant. Ana worked in Asia, the Middle East and
Africa before migrating to Australia in 1983. He is
the Chairman of the Australasian Federation of Tamil
Associations - an umbrella organisation of Tamil
Associations. He was formerly on the Editorial Board
of the �Tamil Nation� fortnightly and has written
extensively on the conflict in the island of Sri
Lanka and on related human rights issue. Between
March 2003 and June 2003 he worked in Sri Lanka with
the World Bank (as a Consultant) to assess the needs
of the war torn northeast on behalf of multilateral
donor agencies that included the World Bank, UN
agencies and the Asian Development Bank. He was in
Sri Lanka again in January 2005 to help assess the
needs arising from the damage caused by the tsunami.
Dr. Karen Parker
Dr.
Karen Parker received her J.D. (honors) from
University of San Francisco, and her Diplome (cum
laude) from the International Institute of Human
Rights (France). She interned at the California
Supreme Court and the Organization of American
States, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
She specializes in human rights and humanitarian
(armed conflict) law, and has represented
non-governmental organizations at the United Nations
human rights forums since 1982. Concern for
escalating violence directed at the Tamil population
in Sri Lanka in 1983 led Ms Parker to speak out and
write extensively on the war ever since. While
mainly presenting concerns at the United Nations,
she has addressed many national legislatures on the
armed conflict in Sri Lanka and has made
presentations on this topic at numerous university
conferences and public forums.
Dr. Jehan Perera
 Dr.
Jehan Perera holds a Doctor of Law (Juris Doctor) -
Harvard Law School (USA) also holds a B.A in
Economics (USA) and a Bachelor of Laws - Open
University (Sri Lanka). He is the Executive Director
at National Peace Council (since 2005), worked as
the Media Director for National Peace Council
(1996-2005), Director at Sarvodaya Legal Aid
Services (1988-1995). He is the author of "
From War to Peace"- a collection of articles, "Peace
Process in Nagaland and Chittagong Hill Tracts: An
Audit report", Co-author of " A people's Movement
Under Siege" and "A Manual of Civil and Political
Rights" and editor of "A Gateway to Justice through
Public Interest law: Proceedings of a seminar". He
has won several awards such as the Media award of
the Catholic National Commission for Social
Communication (2004), Inter Religious and
International Federation for World
Peace Foundation�s Ambassador for Peace award
(2004), Peace Star Award of the Ministry of National
Integration (2000), Esmond Wickremasinghe prize for
English language journalism (1992), Sri Lanka
Jaycees Ten Outstanding Young Persons award for
journalism (1998).
Hon. Gajen Ponnambalam, M.P.
 Mr.
Gajen Ponnambalam is a Member of the Sri Lanka
Parliament. He was elected in 2001 as a
nominee of the Tamil National Alliance. He was
re-elected in 2004 for the Jaffna electoral
district. At present he also serves on many
Parliamentary Consultative and Select Committees. He
is also a founder member of the North East
Secretariat on Human Rights (NESOHR) and serves as
the Honourable Treasurer of the Secretariat. In 1995
he graduated with a Bachelor of Laws LLB (Hons.)
degree and thereafter qualified as a
Barrister-at-Law and was called to the bar of
England and Wales in 1997. He qualified as an
Attorney-at-Law in Sri Lanka and was called to the
Bar of Sri Lanka in 1999.
Mr.Anton Ponraj,
Director, Centre for Just Peace and Democracy
Mr.
David Rampton
 Mr.
David Rampton is Visiting Lecturer and Course
Convenor at Department of Development Studies, SOAS,
University of London
Ms. Madura Rasaratnam
 Ms.
Madura Rasaratnam is a doctoral candidate with the
Government Department of the London School of
Economics. Her thesis explores the relationship
between state, identity and nationalist movements,
using the Tamils of India, Sri Lanka and
Singapore as case studies.
Professor Palanisamy Ramasamy
 Professor
Palanisamy Ramasamy is presently, visiting senior
research fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian
Studies, Singapore, formerly professor of political
economy National University of Malaysia and in 2005
visiting professor at University of Kassel, Germay.
His academic and intellectual interests are in the
political economy of labour and globalization. In
recent years, he has taken a keen interest in
understanding the nature of ethno-nationalist
conflicts in the Asian region. He was appointed to
the LTTE's Constitutional Affairs Committee in 2003
and in 2005 was appointed as the advisor for the
Free Acheh Movement during the Helsinki Peace Talks.
He holds a B.A. from Indian University, USA (1977),
M.A. from McGill University, Canada (1980), and a
Ph.D. from University of Malaya (1991). He has
published four books and numerous articles in local
and international journals.
Mr.
Viswanathan Rudrakumaran
 Mr.
Viswanathan Rudrakumaran
is a practising Attorney in New York, USA
Participated in the Norwegian sponsored Peace Talks
and has written extensively on the conflict in the
island of Sri Lanka.
Dr.
Kumar Rupesinghe
 Dr.
Kumar Rupesinghe is the Chairman of The Foundation
for Co-Existence (FCE) in Sri Lanka.
FCE works towards
consolidating the peace process and promoting
co-existence amongst all peoples of Sri Lanka. It
has established a major programme on human
security in the Eastern Region including an Early
Warning and Response Mechanism for Conflict
Prevention. Dr. Rupesinghe was formerly the
Secretary General of International Alert (IA), an
NGO dedicated to the prevention and mitigation of
violent internal conflict, with field programmes in
over 15 countries. Before this he was Deputy
Director of the International Peace Research
Institute in Oslo. Alongside these postings he has
also acted as Chair of the Forum for Early Warning
and Early Action (FEWER), Chair of the Human Rights
Information Documentation Information Exchange,
International (HURIDOCS), Chair of the Commission on
Internal Conflicts, and coordinator of the United
Nations Programme on Conflict Resolution. He has
authored and edited numerous publications in the
field of conflict resolution.
Mr.
M.H.M.Salman
 Mr.
Salman is Attorney at Law, Sri Lanka and
Member and Convener of the Constitutional Affairs
Committee of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress
Dr.
Satchitanandan Sathananthan
 Dr
S Sathananthan was born in Jaffna and holds a Ph D
degree from the University of Cambridge. He was
Visiting Research Scholar at the Jawaharlal Nehru
University School of International Studies
(1999-2000)
Assistant Director, Marga Institute, Colombo, Sri
Lanka (1986-1989). His research interests
cover national movements in India, Pakistan and Sri
Lanka. Dr Sathananthan is a filmmaker. Among others,
he produced the documentary film �Where Peacocks
Dance�, which explores the cultural roots of Sindhi
nationalism in Pakistan, and �Suicide Warriors�
(1996) on women cadre of the LTTE. His feature film
�Khamosh Pani� (�Silent Waters�) won the
Golden Leopard for Best Film at the Locarno
International Film Festival in Switzerland, 2003. He
is currently co-directing and producing a
documentary film on Pakistan constructed around a
dinner discussion with President Pervez Musharraf.
email: [email protected]
Mr.Nadesan Satyendra,
Project Adviser, Centre for Just Peace and
Democracy
Professor Peter Schalk
 Professor
Peter Schalk, born in 1944 in Germany, migrated to
Sweden in 1958. He is married to Gerd Falk
Schalk, has three children, and is a Swedish
citizen. He studied philosophy, history of ideas,
theology, and indology at the Universities of Lund,
G�teborg, and Uppsala, Sweden, and got his PhD in
History of Religions at the Faculty of Arts in 1972.
In the same year, he was appointed associate
professor (docent) in the History of Religions at
the Faculty of Theology, University of Lund. As a
Humboldt fellow, he did research in M�nchen and
G�ttingen, Germany, in 1980-81. From 1973 to 1983,
he was director, head and senior lecturer of
Religious Studies at the University of G�teborg,
Sweden. Since 1983, he has been full professor in
History of Religions at Uppsala University, Sweden.
His main field of research are:
1.Ritual transmission
of Buddhism through
pirit and baa in Sri Lanka.
2.The religions of Fu
and state ideologies.
3.The history of
Buddhism among Tamils in Tamilakam and
Ilam.
4. Hinduism
in Western exile.
5.V�ddo and other
Indigenous South Asian Groups in the
Image of Westerners.
6. Religious
expressions of social- economic
conflicts in present South Asia.
Dr. Brian Senewiratne
 Dr.
Brian Senewiratne is a Consultant Physician, trained
in Medicine in Cambridge University UK and London.
He is a Sinhalese whose main interest in the Sri
Lankan conflict is in preventing the violation of
Human Rights. In this area, he has strongly
supported the right of the Tamil people to live with
equality, dignity, safety and without discrimination
in the country of their birth. He has written
extensively on the problem and has addressed
numerous meetings across the world for the past two
decades. A close relative of the Bandaranaikes, he
was the Associate Professor of Medicine in Kandy
when educational discrimination of the Tamils under
the guise of �Standardisation� was introduced in
1972 by Prime Minister Sirima Bandaranaike. His
first booklet was on the 1983 massacre of Tamils in
the Sinhala South. A booklet on Human Rights
Violations in Sri Lanka, followed. Since then, he
has written number of articles in which he has
strongly argued for a meaningful devolution of power
to the Tamils in the North and East.
Mr.Brian Smith
 Mr.
Brian Smith is Conflict Adviser to Asian Development
Bank in Colombo. He has degrees in economics,
community development and public administration.
After a number of years as a senior manager in the
health and social services sector in Canada, he
turned his attention to the developing world, where
he managed community-based development programmes in
Africa, the Middle East and Asia for about a decade.
By chance, the programmes he managed for much of
this time were in conflict-affected contexts. For
the past several years, he has acted as an advisor
on conflict sensitivity and conflict analysis as
part of the donor community in Sri Lanka.
Professor M.Sornarajah
Professor M
Sornarajah studied law at the University of Ceylon,
Yale Law School and the University of London. He has
taught law at the University of Ceylon, the
University of Tasmania, (Australia), the University
of Dundee (Scotland), the American University at
Washington (USA) and the National University of
Singapore. He was Sterling Fellow at the Yale Law
School. He was research fellow at the Centre for
International Law of the University of Cambridge and
at the Max Planck Institute for International Law at
Heidelberg, Germany. He is Professorial Fellow at
the Centre for Petroleum and Natural Resources Law
of the University of Dundee. He is the author of the
International Law on Foreign Investment (2nd
edition, Cambridge University Press), the Settlement
of Foreign Investment Disputes (Kluwer) and several
other books and articles. He has been counsel and
arbitrator in several international law cases.
Dr.Rajan Sriskandarajah
 Dr.Rajan
Sriskandarajah is a retired physician and a US
citizen of Sri Lankan Tamil origin. He was the
founding editor of Ilankai Tamil Sangam website
(www.sangam.org) and has also served on the
Editorial Board of �Tamil Nation�. Rajan has
participated in a number of international
conferences on the conflict in Sri Lanka and has
written widely on the subject.
Professor Kristian Stokke
 Kristian
Stokke is Professor of Human Geography at the
University of Oslo, specialising in movement
politics and democratisation in South Africa and
nationalism, conflict transformation and
democratization in Sri Lanka. He is the author and
editor of several books on these themes, including
�Politicising Democracy: The New Local Politics of
Democratisation� (Palgrave Macmillan 2004) and
�Democratising Development: The Politics of
Socio-economic Rights in South Africa� (Martinus
Nijhoff 2005). He is also the author of numerous
papers, articles and book chapters, including
�Building the Tamil Eelam State: Emerging State
Institutions and Forms of Governance in
LTTE-controlled Areas in Sri Lanka� (2006); �Impacts
of Intra-State War and International Resource
Conflicts on Livelihoods of Fishing Communities in
Northern Sri Lanka� (with A. S. Soosai and N.
Shanmugaratnam, 2006); �Development as a Precursor
to Conflict Resolution: A Critical Review of the
Fifth Peace Process in Sri Lanka� (with N.
Shanmugaratnam, 2006); �Sinhalese and Tamil
Nationalism as Postcolonial Political Projects from
�Above,� 1948-1983� (Political Geography, 1998); and
�Authoritarianism in the Age of Market Liberalism in
Sri Lanka� (Antipode, 1997). For further
information, see: http://folk.uio.no/stokke/
Mr.Coomaran Tarcisius,
Programme Director, Centre for Just Peace and
Democracy
Professor Jayadeva Uyangoda
 Dr.
Jayadeva Uyangoda is Professor and Head, Dept. of
Political Science and Public Policy, University of
Colombo. He has written and published extensively on
Sri Lanka�s conflict and peace processes. Among his
publications are Sri Lanka�s Peace process 2002:
Critical Perspectives (2003) and Beyond
Negotiation, Mediation and Limited Peace: Towards
Transformative Peace in Sri Lanka (2004). He
also co-edited
Essays in Constitutional Reform
(1997)
and Matters of Violence: Reflections on Political
and Social Violence in Sri Lanka
(1998).
He is founder co-editor of Polity, a monthly
semi-academic journal published in Colombo on
current political and socio-economic in Sri Lanka.
Active in civil society movements, he has been a
leading advocate of a negotiated settlement to the
ethnic conflict and federalist state reforms in Sri
Lanka. He is at present Member, Council of
Management, Social Scientists� Association of Sri
Lanka, Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust, Colombo and Board
Member, India-Sri Lanka Foundation. He is also a
regular commentator in the media on Sri Lanka�s
peace process.
Ms.
Lukshi Vimalarajah,
Senior Program
Coordinator, Berghof Foundation, Sri Lanka
Dr.
Jayampathy Wickramaratne
 Dr.
Jayampathy Wickramaratne specializes in human right
law, constitutional law, administrative law and
criminal law. He was appointed President�s Counsel,
Sri Lanka in 2001. Dr. Wickramaratne holds a
Master�s degree in Public Administration from the
Postgraduate Institute of Management, University of
Sri Jayawardenapura and was awarded the Ph.D. degree
by the University of Peradeniya for his thesis on
�Fundamental Rights in Sri Lanka�. He was
Consultant, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional
Affairs from 1996-2001. In 2004, he functioned as
Senior Advisor, Ministry of Constitutional Affairs
and Convenor and member of the Presidential Advisory
Committee on Constitutional Affairs. Dr.
Wickramaratne was also a member of the team that
drafted the Government�s 1997 proposals for
constitutional reform and devolution and the
Constitution Bill, 2000. He officiated as Secretary
to the talks on constitutional reform between the
Government and various political parties in 2000. He
is presently Senior Advisor at the Ministry of
Constitutional Affairs and National Integration.
Dr. Wickramaratne has studied the working of the
Constitutions of several countries including Canada,
Belgium, India, South Africa and Switzerland, and
arrangements for devolution in Northern Ireland and
Scotland. He was in Laos on several UNDP assignments
in the legal sector. These included being Consultant
to the International Law Project, Team Leader of a
Legal Sector Evaluation and Chief Technical Advisor
to the Legal Sector Preparatory Assistance Project.
Dr. Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne
 Dr.
Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne joined the Griffith Law
School of Griffith University in 2001. Prior to that
he taught at the University of East London (U.K). He
graduated from the
School of Oriental and
African Studies
in the University
of London in 1990 and completed his London LLM in
1992. He received his doctorate from the University
of Kent in Canterbury in 1999. His research
interests lie in the field of Law and Post
colonialism and Buddhist Legal Studies. He has
published articles in
Social and Legal Studies,
Law/Text/Culture,
the Griffith
Law Review and Social Identites
and he has also written in the Sri Lankan media. He
has published a number of articles on the
relationship between Buddhism, law and identity in
Sri Lanka using phenomenological, deconstructive and
psychoanalytical perspectives. He has recently
finished co-editing a special issue of the Griffith
Law Review on Tracking the Postcolonial in Law. He
has been asked to write entries on Sri Lanka and
Buddhist Law in South Asia for the
Oxford Encyclopaedia
of Legal History
. In addition he
is currently working on a book on
Nation,
Constitutionalism and Buddhist Cosmology
in Sri Lanka. He
is currently working on an article on
Buddhist Law in Theravada Buddhism.
Since 1997 Roshan has
also undertaken two major consultancies with leading
law firms in London. Between 1997 -2000 he was
commissioned to write a report on Sri Lanka in
relation to a shipping arbitration. In addition in
1999 he was asked to provide a country report on Sri
Lanka to a leading London law firm.
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