Palitha Kohona

Palitha T. B. Kohona, a Sri Lankan born diplomat, was the former Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations (UN). Until August 2009 he was the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of Sri Lanka and was the former Secretary-General of the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process. He was also a member of the Government delegation at the talks held in February and October 2006 Geneva, Switzerland with the LTTE. He also led the Government delegation to Oslo for talks with the LTTE. He is a citizen of both Sri Lanka and Australia.

Kohona, who hails from Matale, received his secondary education in Sri Lanka at S. Thomas College, Mount Lavinia. He obtained a LLB (Hons) at the University of Sri Lanka, LLM from the Australian National University on International Trade Law and a Doctorate from Cambridge University, UK, for the thesis 'The Regulation of International Trade through Law,' subsequently published by Kluwer, Netherlands. He is also an Attorney-at-Law, Supreme Court of Sri Lanka.

Kohona was the Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka from 2006 to 2009. Ambassador Kohona was the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York from 2009 to 2015. During this period he was elected as the Chair of the UN GA Sixth Committee (Legal) in 2013. He was the Co Chair of the UN Working Group on Biological Diversity Beyond National Jurisdiction, and Chair of the UN Committee on Israeli Practices in the Occupied Arab Territories. He was a member of the delegation to the UN General Assembly in 2006 and 2008. He has led official level delegations to a range of countries on bilateral and multilateral matters. Previously he was the Secretary-General of the Government Peace Secretariat (2006) during which time he participated in two rounds of peace negotiations with the LTTE in Geneva and led the delegation to a round organised in Oslo.

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