Sir Shri­dath “Son­ny” Ram­phal, a tow­er­ing Caribbean states­man who Nel­son Man­dela once praised for his work in hu­man jus­tice, has died at 95.

His fam­i­ly an­nounced his peace­ful pass­ing yes­ter­day. Sir Shri­dath was born in New Am­s­ter­dam, British Guiana (now Guyana) in 1928 and be­came a promi­nent fig­ure in in­ter­na­tion­al diplo­ma­cy and an el­der states­man of the Com­mon­wealth and the Caribbean.

In a dis­tinc­tive ca­reer, Sir Shri­dath held nu­mer­ous piv­otal roles, in­clud­ing as­sis­tant At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion, Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and For­eign Af­fairs of Guyana, and Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Com­mon­wealth. He al­so held con­cur­rent po­si­tions as Chan­cel­lor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Guyana, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, and War­wick Uni­ver­si­ty.

He was ed­u­cat­ed at King’s Col­lege, Lon­don and Gray’s Inn, Lon­don. He lost his wife of 67 years, La­dy Lois Ram­phal, in 2019.

Re­act­ing to the news yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne said, “Sir Shri­dath served his na­tion, our re­gion, the Com­mon­wealth, and all of hu­man­i­ty with great dis­tinc­tion and tremen­dous dig­ni­ty. I salute the life and ser­vice of a mas­ter diplo­mat and great son of the Guyanese soil, in whom we should all be im­mense­ly proud.”

Sir Shri­dath was the on­ly in­di­vid­ual to have served on all the Glob­al Com­mis­sions that pro­duced land­mark re­ports on the en­vi­ron­ment, de­vel­op­ment and dis­ar­ma­ment be­tween 1980 and 1995. As chair­man of the West In­di­an Com­mis­sion, his 1992 re­port, Time for Ac­tion, was a sem­i­nal blue­print for Caribbean de­vel­op­ment.

He al­so served as pres­i­dent of the World Con­ser­va­tion Union, spe­cial ad­vis­er to the UN Con­fer­ence on En­vi­ron­ment and De­vel­op­ment, and chief ne­go­tia­tor for the Caribbean on Ex­ter­nal Eco­nom­ic Re­la­tions. He was al­so a me­di­a­tor and fa­cil­i­ta­tor in elec­tions and con­sti­tu­tion­al crises.

As the longest-serv­ing Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al from 1975 to 1990, Sir Shri­dath was in­stru­men­tal in the fight against in­sti­tu­tion­al racism in South­ern Africa, play­ing a key role in the ter­mi­na­tion of apartheid in South Africa.

Nel­son Man­dela once said of him: “He is one of those men who have be­come fa­mous be­cause, in their fight for hu­man jus­tice, they have cho­sen the whole world as their the­atre.”

His work con­tin­ued long in­to re­tire­ment. At 92, amid the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, he was the first lawyer to ap­pear vir­tu­al­ly be­fore the In­ter­na­tion­al Court of Jus­tice, rep­re­sent­ing Guyana in a sig­nif­i­cant bor­der dis­pute with Venezuela.

Among the recog­ni­tion he re­ceived were the Or­der of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (OCC), the Knight Grand Cross of the Most Dis­tin­guished Or­der of St. Michael and St. George (GCMG), the Or­der of Ex­cel­lence of Guyana (OE), the Or­der of Mer­it of Ja­maica (OM), the Or­der of the Com­pan­ions of Oliv­er Tam­bo from South Africa, Hon­orary Com­pan­ion of the Or­der of Aus­tralia (AC), and an ap­point­ment to the Or­der of New Zealand, New Zealand’s high­est civ­il ho­n­our.