Sir Shridath Ramphal is widely considered as the Caribbean’s leading statesman. Born and educated in Guyana he was educated at London and Harvard Universities and was independent Guyana’s first Attorney General, and later Minister of Foreign Affairs and Justice.

As Secretary General of the Commonwealth, he played a prominent part in supporting the struggle for freedom in Southern Africa and in promoting alternative views of global economic issues, more favourable to the needs of developing countries and the world’s poor.

During his fifteen years as Secretary General he maintained that "the Commonwealth cannot negotiate for the world, but it can help the world to negotiate".

Sir Sonny became an exceptional contributor to world negotiations , serving on the independent international commissions by bodies such as the United Nations to study some of the major issues facing the world community. These covered International Development, Disarmament and Security, Environment and Development, and humanitarian issues.

He was also co-chair with the former Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson of the Independent Commissionon Global Governance. Sir Shridath also chaired the West Indies Commission in the early 1990’s and was appinted by the heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as their Chief Negotiator for international economic negotiations with Europe, the Amerticas and globally. In 2007 he led a legal team before a panel of the United Nations Convention on The Law of The Sea to win for his native Guyana an abitral award in its maritime border dipute with it neighbour Surinam. He wrote a book recounting the leagl arguments on this arbitration which was published in 2008 called Triumph for UNCLOS

Sir Shridath has recently headed negotiating teams which arbitrated between Guyana and Surinam over oil exploration rights and between Belize and Guatemala on long-standing border issues