Judge Asoka de Zoysa Gunawardana was born on 6 August, 1942. He was enrolled as an advocate of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka in June 1967, and became Barrister-at-Law of the High Court of Australia and the Supreme Court of New South Wales in November 1984. He worked in Sri Lanka’s Attorney-General’s department as a Crown Counsel from 1972, and was appointed Deputy
Solicitor-General in 1986. In 1988 he was appointed a Judge of the Court of Appeal of Sri Lanka, and became President of the Court of Appeal in 1996. In December 1996, he was elevated to the Supreme Court, the highest Court in Sri Lanka.
Judge Gunawardana gratuated in Law from the University of Ceylon, Colombo, in 1969 and obtained his Ph.D in international law from the University of Sydney, Australia in 1986. He also holds a Diploma in Human Rights form Raoul Wallenberge Institute, University of Lund, Sweden (1993). Active in the field of international law and international human rights law, he has
participated in numerous international conferences and seminars, served as a panelist at the Meetings of the American Society of International Law and SAARCLAW conferences, and lectured in international law at Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Judge Gunawardana has published papers in the field of international law and international human rights law, which have appeared in several journals such as the Singapore Journal of Legal Studies, the Thesaurus Acroasium and the Proceedings of the American Society of International Law.
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