Gareth Evans Joins University of Melbourne

10 August 2009.

Former Australian Foreign Minister and President and CEO of the Brussels-based
International Crisis Group, Gareth Evans has joined the University of Melbourne as
an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Social and Political Sciences in the
Faculty of Arts.

University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Professor Glyn Davis is delighted Gareth Evans is returning to the University to take up this three-year appointment. "His international expertise and commitment to worldwide conflict resolution will be a most welcome addition to the School of Political and Social Sciences, and to our new Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences as well as to the broader University community," Professor Davis said.

For most of the next year Professor Evans will be primarily occupied with his role as Co-Chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, working on the drafting of its major report, due by the end of 2009, and the worldwide advocacy of its recommendations.

Professor Evans said he is pleased to be 'returning home' to the institution that has been such a formative part of his personal and professional life. A Melbourne graduate in Arts and Law (Honours), he lectured in law at the University from 1971 to 1976.

"With its strong, long-standing and growing international reputation, the University of Melbourne is a wonderful base from which to work over the next year on the global nuclear commission.

"And as that commitment winds down I look forward to engaging more and more substantially in the University's academic life."

Dean of Arts Professor Mark Considine said the University - and the Faculty of Arts - looks forward to tapping into Professor Evans' expertise and experience in its international outreach, in developing its new Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and in contributing where possible to the teaching of Masters programs in International Relations and Public Policy.

Professor Evans's research and writing interests embrace conflict prevention and resolution, genocide and mass atrocity crimes, weapons of mass destruction, global governance and Australian foreign policy.

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PROFESSOR GARETH EVANS - BIONOTE

The Hon Gareth Evans AO,QC, BA LLB Hons (Melbourne), MA (Oxford), Hon LLD (Melbourne, Carleton, Sydney) was a long-serving Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments as Attorney-General (1983-84), Minister for Resources and Energy (1984-87), Minister for Transport and Communications (1987-88) and Foreign Minister (1988-96).

In the course of his 21 years as Senator for Victoria and MHR for Holt he was Deputy Leader (1987-93) then Leader (1993-96) of the Government in the Senate and Deputy Leader of the Opposition (1996-98).

After leaving Australian politics, he was for most of the last decade - from January 2000 until June 2009 - based in Brussels as President and CEO of the International Crisis Group (www.crisisgroup.org) , one of the best known international NGOs, leading a staff of over 130 working on conflict prevention and resolution worldwide.

He has chaired or been a member of many major international commissions and panels, including the Canada-sponsored International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, the UN Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, the Blix Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction and the UN Secretary-Gerneral's Advisory Committee on Genocide.

In 2008 he was appointed by the Australian and Japanese Prime Ministers co-chair (along with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi) of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (www.icnnd.org)

Gareth Evans has written, co-written or edited nine books - including Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s (Allen & Unwin,1993), Australia's Foreign Relations (Melbourne University Press 1991, 2nd ed 1995, with Bruce Grant), and most recently The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All (Brookings Institution Press, September 2008, awarded an Honorable Mention in the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award 2009 as one of the best three books on international relations published in the last year).

In 1995 he was awarded the prestigious Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order for his Foreign Policy article "Cooperative Security and Interstate Conflict", and has published over 100 journal articles and chapters (and many more newspaper and magazine articles) on foreign relations, politics, human rights and legal reform. A full list of his publications is at www.gevans.org .

Since beginning his professional life lecturing in law at the University of Melbourne (1971-76), Gareth Evans has throughout his career maintained strong academic and scholarly connections, giving lectures at and developing close relations with many universities around the world. In May 2004 he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and is currently or has been a member of the International Advisory Board of UN Studies at Yale, the Advisory Council of the Institute for International Studies at Stanford, and the Editorial Advisory Board of the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

Other current positions include Inaugural Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, member of the International Council of the Asia Society, and Chair and member respectively of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Councils on Human Rights and Protection, and Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction.