Professor Thakur is emeritus professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Senior Research Fellow, Toda Peace Institute; and Fellow, Australian Institute of International Affairs. He was formerly Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations; a Commissioner and one of the principal authors of The Responsibility to Protect; Principal Writer of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s second reform report; a Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Foundation Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario; and Co-Convenor of the Asia–Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. His books include Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey (Indiana University Press); The Group of Twenty (G20) (Routledge); The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy (Oxford University Press); Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015 (CNND); Nuclear Weapons and International Security: Selected Essays (Routledge); The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect, 2nd Ed. (Cambridge University Press); and The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order (Routledge). He is also a regular media commentator and his research interests include Asian Security, Nuclear Weapons Policy, Arms Control and Disarmament, Responsibility to Protect, and Global Governance.