MANILA: A Singaporean lawyer and diplomat who led an international conference that adopted the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, a Myanmar activist who documents human rights atrocities and a former Bangladeshi teacher who has helped provide free medical care to the poor were named Monday as the winners of this year's Ramon Magsaysay Awards.
Regarded as Asia's version of the Nobel Prize and named after a popular Philippine president who died in a 1957 plane crash, the awards honor "greatness of spirit through selfless service to the peoples of Asia."
The winners of the award, first given in 1958, will be recognized at the Metropolitan Theatre in Manila on Nov. 15 with a medallion, inscribed certificate and an undisclosed cash prize.
Singaporean lawyer and diplomat Tommy Koh, 88, was recognized for promoting international law, including presiding over a U.N. conference that adopted the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982.
"Of enormous significance to maritime countries, this constitution for the oceans defined territorial waters and the economic rights of countries to their coastal waters and provides dispute-settlement mechanisms," the awards body said.
The U.N. convention was the main basis for a 2016 ruling by an international tribunal that invalidated China's expansive claims in the South China Sea. Beijing, however, refused to recognize the tribunal's jurisdiction and continues to reject the ruling that was initiated by the Philippines in 2013 and rejected and continued to be locked in tense territorial standoffs in the disputed waters.
Bo Kyi, the 61-year-old winner from Myanmar, has endured arrest, torture, and spent seven years in prison for a life spent in defense of democracy and resistance against Myanmar's human rights violations by Myanmar's military.
Kyi has demanded the release of all political prisoners in his country, including former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and has served as a healer for former political detainees and their families, the awards body said.
In March 2000, Bo Kyi and fellow former political prisoners organized the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, which has "devoted itself to documenting political imprisonment, supporting detainees and their families and ensuring the continued visibility of the junta's political prisoners in Myanmar and around the world," the awards body said.
Runa Khan, 67, of Bangladesh, was honored for "transforming" the word "charity" that helped the most destitute "deal with climate change, create livelihood opportunities and bring social justice to the excluded," according to the awards body.
Khan's group now employs about 2,500 people, with seven hospital ships and two land-based hospitals and 550 mobile clinics, it said.
"Coming from an affluent family, I saw that privilege cannot be an entitlement, but a responsibility; not a family legacy, but one that must be shared too, others, who might have the chance to live with hope, opportunity and dignity," she said.
The citation: "Through the steadfast faith in dialogue, the rule of law and international cooperation, he has helped make peaceful coexistence possible in a world of unequal power."