Elayne G. Whyte is the former Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica and was the first woman, and the first person of African descent, to hold this office. She was the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations and she was President of the UN Conference involving 124 states that negotiated and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which entered into force in 2021. She has served in leadership positions in security and disarmament treaty-regimes and has led several global negotiation processes to fill legal or cooperation gaps in the fields of human rights and global health. She also has served as the executive director of the Mesoamerica Integration & Development Project, which coordinates and delivers social and economic development projects across the Central American region. Elayne Whyte is currently a Fellow at Harvard University’s Weatherhead Scholars Program, where she researches and has run a study group on �