Background

Ramesh Thakur is a Distinguished Fellow at CIGI and the former Vice Rector and Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo (1998-2007)and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations. In September 2008 he was appointed inaugural director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs. He was formerly professor and head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian University in Canberra (1995-1998); and professor of International Relations and director of Asian Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand (1980-1995). Dr. Thakur was a Commissioner and one of the principal authors of The Responsibility to Protect (2001), and Senior Adviser on Reforms and Principal Writer of the United Nations Secretary-General’s second reform report (2002). He was a member of the National Consultative Committee on Peace and Disarmament in Australia, having previously been a member of the Public Advisory Committee on Arms Control and Disarmament in New Zealand.