Sir Shridath Surendranath "Sonny" Ramphal, GCMG, AC, ONZ, OE, OM, OCC, QC, FRSA (born 3 October 1928, New Amsterdam, British Guiana) served as the second Commonwealth Secretary-General from 1975-1990. Ramphal previously served as the Foreign Minister of Guyana from 1972-1975. He was born in Guyana to an Indo-Guyanese family.
Ramphal was educated at King's College London and Harvard Law School.
He worked as the Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 1989 to 2002, the University of the West Indies until 2003 and also served as Chancellor of the University of Guyana.
During his time as Commonwealth Secretary-General, the United Kingdom represented by Margaret Thatcher was found to be in a minority of one on the issue of economic sanctions against apartheid South Africa.
With Ingvar Carlsson, he was in 1995 one of the co-chairs of the Commission on Global Governance, which reported on issues of international development, international security, globalization and global governance.
He was made an Honorary Fellow of Royal Society of Arts in May 2006. He is a Vice-President of the Royal Commonwealth Society.
The Ramphal Building at the University of Warwick was named in his honour.
Ramphal has two daughters, Susan and Amanda and two sons, Ian and Mark.
The Ramphal Centre for Commonwealth Policy Studies http://www.ramphalcentre.org Official website for the continuation of the work of Sir Shridath Ramphal: promoting good governance, economic development and social justice around the world.
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Arnold Smith |
Secretary-General for the Commonwealth 1975–1990 |
Succeeded by Chief Emeka Anyaoku |
| Academic offices | ||
| Preceded by Baron Scarman |
Chancellor of the University of Warwick 1989–2002 |
Succeeded by Nick Scheele |
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