Singapore diplomat, Myanmar activist and Bangladeshi aid giver win Magsaysay awards

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — 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 whose group documents human rights atrocities and a former Bangladeshi teacher who has helped provide aid to her country’s poorest 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 people across 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 dialogue and the rule of law. He is best known for presiding over a U.N. conference of more than 150 countries, which 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 mechanisms for settling disputes,” the awards body said.

The U.N. convention was the main basis for a 2016 ruling by an arbitration panel in The Hague that invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. Beijing, however, refused to participate in the arbitration that was initiated by the Philippines in 2013 and rejected and continues to defy the decision.

China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been locked in tense territorial standoffs in the disputed waters for decades.

“Through his steadfast faith in dialogue, the rule of law and international cooperation, he has helped make peaceful coexistence possible in a world of unequal power,” the awards body said.

Bo Kyi, the 61-year-old winner from Myanmar, has twice been arrested in the past and spent seven years in prison for a life spent in defense of democracy and resistance against widespread human rights violations by Myanmar’s military.

He has demanded the release of all political prisoners in his country, including former leader Aung San Suu Kyi , and helped raise funds to support the 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 won the award for “her profound empathy for the poorest of the poor in her country.”

Coming from an affluent family, she first served as a teacher to poor children in 1979. In 2002, she established an organization called “Friendship Bangladesh” that helped the most destitute “deal with climate change , educate their children, empower women, create livelihood opportunities and bring social justice to the excluded,” according to the awards body.

Khan’s group now employs more than 7,500 people, with seven hospital ships and two land-based hospitals and 550 mobile clinics, it said.

“In her hands, privilege became not an entitlement, but a responsibility; not a family legacy to protect, but a gift to be shared so that others, too, might have the chance to live with hope, opportunity and dignity,” it added.