Harsha Fernando has more than 20 years of experience in the legal field specializing in commercial, contract and regulatory law. He served as the Governance Advisor to the Asian Development Bank’s Sri Lanka Resident Mission and as a Senior State Counsel in the Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka. He has been the Legal Advisor to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission, and the Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process.

He is a Visiting Lecturer at the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM) of the University of Sri Jayawardenapura and was a visiting lecturer at the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies in their “Skills for Conflict” program, conducted in collaboration with the UN University. He has also been a lecturer at the Institute for Advance Legal Studies of the Sri Lanka Law College and for programs conducted by the South Asia Federation of Infrastructure Regulators in India, the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), and Queen Mary University, London.

Harsha holds a Masters in Business Administration (MBA) from Nanynag Technological University in Singapore, an Executive MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and a Masters of Law (LLM) Degree in Economic Regulation from Kings College at the University of London. He was awarded the Nanyang Fellowship from Singapore and Chevening Scholarship from the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of UK and was named the Outstanding Young Person of the Year for Legal Administration by the Junior Chamber International (JCI) in 2011.

Prashanthi Mahindaratne, is an experienced litigator in all spheres of the law and was appointed as Counsel for the Law Firm, Julius & Creasy in July 2011, having served as a Prosecutor at the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal, in The Hague, Netherlands (UNICTY) since 2002. She conducted high level war crimes prosecutions in The Hague, such as the crimes committed in the siege of Sarajevo, the shelling of Dubrovnik, ethnic cleansing in Croatia and the case against the former President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic. Prior to her tenure in The Hague, Prashanthi served as State Counsel of the Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka for over 10 years, conducting criminal prosecutions and litigating civil, commercial and labour disputes.

She also prosecuted the high profile war crimes trial in Sri Lanka against military personnel for crimes committed against civilians in the war zone in the North - the case of Rape and Murder of Krishanthi Kumaraswamy and others.

Prashanthi passed out of Sri Lanka Law College in 1990 with First Class Honours and holds two LL.M degrees in Public International Law, International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law from the New York University School of Law and the University of London. She holds a diploma in Forensic Medicine and Science from the University of Colombo and has received training in advanced advocacy techniques at the Cambridge University. She is a Hauser Global Scholar and a British Chevening Scholar.

Mathuri Thamilmaran is an attorney-at-law with professional experience in international human rights law. She completed her Masters in Law in the International Legal Studies Program at American University Washington College of Law (WCL) and is a graduate of the Faculty of Law, University of Colombo. She has written academic papers on the constitutional process in Sri Lanka, IDPs and the Right to Adequate Housing in Post-war Sri Lanka, and on Women’s Right to Property under the personal laws of Sri Lanka.

Most recently she worked as a Researcher with the Consultations Task Force on Reconciliation Mechanisms whose report was handed over to the Government of Sri Lanka in early January this year. She has engaged in the litigation of human rights cases in the appellate courts of Sri Lanka since taking oaths in 2010.