Our heartfelt sympathy goes out to the loved ones of Jayantha Dhanapala, former IPB Sean MacBride Prize Awardee 2017. In this challenging moment, we wish peace, comfort, bravery, and lots of love. Dhanapala is a former UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs and has served as Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States and the United Nations Office in Geneva.
He was widely praised for his presidency of the 1995 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference, a historic occasion in the field of disarmament, because he developed a package of decisions that balanced the twin objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament and the concerns of the nuclear weapon states and the non-nuclear weapon states, which were adopted without a vote. IPB will always remember his remarkable indigenous and acceptable solution when this conference felt deadlocked.
Thank you, Mr. Dhanapala, for your dedication to the cause of disarmament and your initiatives towards creating the Central Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. We will continue to serve your legacy.
More about Jayantha Dhanapala’s works are available at: https://www.betterworld.info/peace/peace-prizes/sean-macbride-peace-prize/2007-jayantha-dhanapala-sri-lanka