Professor Deepika Udagama and Ambassador Esala Weerakoon join RCSS Board
COLOMBO -The Regional Centre for Strategic Studies (RCSS) welcomed Prof Deepika Udagama and Ambassador (Retd.) Esala Weerakoon to the Board of Directors, at its meeting held on April 30, 2026. They succeed former Secretary to the Prime Minister, Deshamanya M. D. D. Pieris, and former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank (CB) and member of the Monetary Board of the CB, Dr Ranee Jayamaha, who completed their terms recently.
The current members of the Board of Directors comprise Prof Amal Jayawardane, (Emeritus Professor of International Relations, University of Colombo), Dr Chulani Kodikara (Feminist Researcher and activist), Dilip Kodikara, (Entrepreneur and a founding Director of the RCSS), Prof. Nazir Hussain (Professor of International Relations and former Dean, of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan), and Prof Varun Sahni (Professor of International Relations at Ashoka University, India).
The RCSS is an independent, non-profit, policy research centre co-founded in 1992 by Prof Shelton Kodikara, its first Executive Director, to focus on a broad range of conventional and non-conventional sources of conflict and conditions of peace. Ambassador (Retd.) Ravinatha Aryasinha, former Foreign Secretary, presently serves as the Executive Director of the RCSS.
An academic specialized in International Human Rights, Prof. Deepika Udagama served as the Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (October, 2015-August, 2020), a member of the Human Rights Commission (2003-2006) and the Law Commission of Sri Lanka (2004-2009). She also served as an elected Alternate Member of Sri Lanka to the then UN Sub-Commission on the Protection of Human Rights (1998-2001). In 1991, having founded the Centre for the Study of Human Rights (CSHR) at the University of Colombo and having established the Department of Law at the University of Peradeniya in 2009, until September 2025, she was the Chair Professor of Law at the University of Peradeniya. She received her legal education at the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo (LL.B. (Hons.) and LL.M. Degrees) and School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, USA (LL.M. and Doctor of Juridical Science (JSD) Degrees in international human rights law).
A Diplomat, Esala Weerakoon, served as the 14th Secretary General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) from March 2020 till September 2023. He served as Foreign Secretary of Sri Lanka (2016-2017) and Senior Additional Secretary to the President of Sri Lanka (2018-2019 and from 2023- 2024). His 35-year diplomatic career includes serving as High Commissioner to India, Ambassador to Norway, Deputy Chief of Mission to the USA and in various capacities abroad and in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also served the Government of Sri Lanka as the Secretary, Ministry of Tourism Development and Christian Religious Affairs; Additional Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Additional Secretary, Ministry of Economic Development. He has an Honours Degree in Economics from the University of Kelaniya and an MSc from the London School of Economics.
-RCSS
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