Sir Shridath Surendranath Ramphal (born 3 October 1928), often known as Sir Sonny Ramphal, is a Guyanese politician who was the second Commonwealth Secretary-General, holding the position from 1975 to 1990. He was also the foreign minister of Guyana from 1972 to 1975, and assistant attorney general of the West Indies Federation from 1958 to 1962. Shridath Ramphal is an Earth Charter International Commission member. Biography Ramphal was born in New Amsterdam, British Guiana, to an Indo-Guyanese family. After attending schools in Georgetown, Ramphal studied law at King's College London, graduating with LL.B. and LL.M. degrees. He was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in London in 1951. As a pupil barrister he worked with the British politician and lawyer Dingle Foot. Ramphal continued studying law for a year at Harvard Law School in the US on a 1962 Guggenheim Fellowship. Ramphal started his legal career as a Crown Counsel in the Attorney-General's Office in 1953, becoming Solicitor-General and then Assistant Attorney-General of the short-lived West Indies Federation. After a period in private practice in Jamaica, he returned to British Guiana in 1965 to be the Attorney General. Two years later, he was also appointed Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, later becoming Minister of Justice (from 1973) and Minister of Foreign Affairs (from 1972). In 1975, he left Guyana to become Commonwealth Secretary-General. He also served as the Chancellor of the University of Warwick from 1989 to 2002, at the University of the West Indies from 1989 to 2003, and at the University of Guyana from 1990 to 1992. During Ramphal's 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. Selected bibliography Inseparable Humanity: An Anthology of Reflections (Hansib, 1988) Triumph for UNCLOS: The Guyana-Suriname Maritime Arbitration (Hansib, 2008) Caribbean Challenges: Sir Shridath Ramphal's Collected Counsel (Hansib, 2012) Honours and awards Sir Shridath was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1966 Birthday Honours (the list was dated to 25 May of that year). He was knighted in the 1970 New Year Honours, and invested with