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",[1] she received the Order of Canada and awards from the governments of Austria, China, Colombia, Germany, the United Nations and the World Conservation Union.

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.

[13]: 7–15 Thomas Mann publicly indicated his opposition to the Nazi Party in an open letter to literary critic Eduard Korrodi of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, dated 2 February 1936.

[13]: 7  On 18 August 1936, the town council of Proseč, Czechoslovakia, voted to accept Thomas Mann's application for a Certificate of Domicile.

Mann's application was supported and expedited at high levels of government and as of 19 November 1936 he and other family members, including his minor children Elisabeth and Michael, were granted Czechoslovak citizenship.

This came to prominence with the Emmy-winning docudrama TV mini-series Die Manns – Ein Jahrhundertroman (2001), in which she was shown in interviews with director Heinrich Breloer on different locations in Europe and the United States where her family once stayed.

It marked the first time that she talked extensively about her family, and she agreed that she was the only one of the six children of Mann who felt totally reconciled with the shadow of their father.

The members of the Committee at the time of the publication of the Draft were, in addition to Hutchins and Borgese, Mortimer J. Adler, Stringfellow Barr, Albert Léon Guérard, Harold Innis, Erich Kahler, Wilber G. Katz, Charles Howard McIlwain, Robert Redfield, and Rexford Tugwell.

[8] In 1963, Borgese published The Ascent of Woman, a sociological work suggesting that women were in the process of becoming "men's true equals".

[8] With Robert Hutchins and others, Elisabeth moved to the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, California, where she served as a senior fellow from 1964 to 1978.

She wrote extensively on topics including peace, disarmament, human rights, world development, and the Law of the Sea.

[9][2][28] In 1967, she began to focus specifically on marine law, working with Wolfgang Friedmann and Arvid Pardo, then Malta's Ambassador to the United States.

She was the initiator and organizer of the first international conference on the law of the sea, held at Malta in 1970, with the title of "Pacem in Maribus" ("Peace in the Oceans").

[25] From 1973 to 1982, Mann Borgese formed part of the expert group of the Austrian delegation during the development of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

[6][2] In 1979, Mann Borgese accepted a one-year fellowship as the Killam Senior Fellow at Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

Currently Associate Director of the Lester Pearson Institute for International Development and an advocate of international co-operation, she is recognized as an authority on the Law of the Sea and is respected for her undisputed knowledge, her outstanding leadership abilities and her commitment to a better future for all – Governor General of Canada[42]Mann Borgese received a number of honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Humanities from Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax (1986), one from Concordia University in Montreal in 1997,[25] and a Doctor of Laws degree from Dalhousie University in 1998, at the age of 80.

In addition to works dealing with international relations, the law of the sea, the environment, and world development, she wrote children's books, plays, and a study of animal communication.