Elisabeth Mann Borgese

Elisabeth Veronika Mann Borgese, CM (24 April 1918 – 8 February 2002) was an internationally recognized expert on maritime law and policy and the protection of the environment. Called "the mother of the oceans", she received the Order of Canada and awards from the governments of Austria, China, Colombia, Germany, the United Nations and the World Conservation Union.

Elisabeth was a child of Nobel Prize–winning German author Thomas Mann and his wife Katia Mann. Born in Germany, Elisabeth experienced displacement due to the rise of the Nazi Party and became a citizen first of Czechoslovakia, then of the United States, and finally of Canada.

Elisabeth Mann Borgese worked as a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California and as a university professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. She became a proponent of international cooperation and world federalism. In 1968, she was one of the founding members – and for a long time the only female member – of the Club of Rome. In 1970 she organized the first international conference on the law of the sea, "Pacem in Maribus" ("Peace in the Oceans") in Malta, and helped to establish the International Ocean Institute (IOI) at the Royal University of Malta. From 1973 to 1982, Mann Borgese helped to develop the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). She also helped to establish the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.