Listings of all CNS staff with areas of expertise, contact information, biographies, and recent publications.

Updated: Jul 19, 2011

Aruni Wijewardane

Director,
International Organizations and Nonproliferation Program (IONP)

Activities

Aruni Wijewardane is Director of the International Organizations and Nonproliferation Program (IONP) at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies(CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS).

Background

Aruni Wijewardane has served as a career diplomat with the Sri Lanka Ministry for External Affairs since 1988. She has extensive diplomatic experience in multilateral negotiations and participation in multilateral fora relating, inter alia, to disarmament, nonproliferation, human rights and political issues in New York, Geneva, and Vienna.

She served as Governor for Sri Lanka on the IAEA Board of Governors, as well as Permanent Representative to the CTBTO. She was a (former) member of the UNSG's Panel of Government Experts on Verification.

In her diplomatic career, she has served as Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Austria, (with concurrent accreditation to several former Eastern European countries), in the Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva, as well as in Malaysia and the Philippines. Among several posts she has held at the Ministry of External Affairs in Sri Lanka, she has served as the Director-General of the United Nations and Multilateral Affairs Division.

Areas of Research

• The Non-Aligned Movement in nonproliferation and disarmament issues
• Developments in the IAEA and the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva
• The 2015 NPT Review Conference and preparatory process
• International Organizations dealing with nonproliferation and disarmament
• Nonproliferation issues related to the Middle East

Education

Aruni Wijewardane has a Masters Degree in International Relations, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka and an Mphil degree from the University of Cambridge, UK (Chevening Scholar).