Prof. Ramesh Thakur is Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University. He was Vice Rector and Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University (and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations) from 1998–2007. Prof. 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 Professor of Political Science at the University of Waterloo (2007–11), Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (2007–10) and Foundation Director of the Balsillie School of International affairs in Waterloo, Ontario.
The author or editor of over 40 books and 400 articles and book chapters, Prof. Thakur also writes regularly for quality national and international newspapers around the world. He serves on the international advisory boards of institutes in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America, and is the Editor-in-Chief of Global Governance. His R2P-related books include The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge University Press, 2006); The Responsibility to Protect: Norms, Laws and the Use of Force in International Politics (Routledge, 2011); Blood and Borders: The Responsibility to Protect and the Problem of the Kin-State (Tokyo: UN University Press, 2011); and The People vs. the State: Reflections on UN Authority, US Power and the Responsibility to Protect (UN University Press, 2011).