Sri Lankan jurist, lawyer and human rights activist Basil Fernando, a former leader of the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, has died at the age of 81.
Born in Sri Lanka on October 14, 1944, Fernando was an author and poet who dedicated decades to promoting human rights, justice and the rule of law across Asia.
From 1989 to 1992, he served as Appeals Counsel for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong under a project sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
He later worked with the United Nations in Cambodia. From 1992 to 1993, he served as a Senior United Nations Human Rights Officer in charge of the Investigation Unit under the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC).
From 1993 to 1994, he served as Officer in Charge and Chief of Legal Assistance at the Cambodia Office of the United Nations Centre for Human Rights.
Fernando joined the Asian Human Rights Commission in 1994 and later served as its Executive Director. In that role, he worked to document human rights violations and connect grassroots human rights initiatives with campaigns for legal and institutional reforms.
His contributions to human rights advocacy earned him several international honours. He received the Gwangju Prize for Human Rights in 2001, was named an Ashoka Fellow in 2005, and received the Right Livelihood Award in 2014 for his work supporting and documenting the implementation of human rights in Asia.
The Right Livelihood Award is widely known as the “Alternative Nobel Prize.”
Fernando’s decades-long work made him a prominent figure in human rights advocacy and the promotion of the rule of law in Asia.
