Savitri Goonesekere is Professor of Law Emeritus of the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka where she held the posts of Professor of Law, and also Vice Chancellor of the University deom 1999-2002. She has held fellowships at the School of Oriental and African Studies, U.K., the Human Rights Programme Harvard Law School USA, and the UNICEF Research Centre in Florence, Italy. She was a member of the UN Committee of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Agains Women (CEDAW) from 1999-2002, and until recently Chairperson of the Asian Development Bank’s External Forum on Gender. She is a member of Advisory Board of several regional and international institutions, and has published extensively on Family Law, Human Right gender and development and Children Rights.