Elayne Whyte
2022 ALI Fellow
Elayne Whyte brings to ALI deep international negotiation and policy creation experience. As Costa Rica’s ambassador and permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, she chaired the diplomatic conference that negotiated the U.N. treaty on nuclear weapons prohibition and partnered with the World Health Organization on an international cooperation framework to address the more than two million cases of snake bite poisoning per year, a neglected tropical public health issue. Earlier Elayne was the first and youngest woman, and the first person of African descent, to serve as Costa Rica’s vice minister of foreign affairs, and was the executive director of the Mesoamerica Integration & Development Project, which coordinates and delivers social and economic development projects across the Central American region.