Stephen J Toope, LLD

Mr. Stephen J. Toope is President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Previously, he served as the 346th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the first non-UK national to hold the post. He was Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, President of the University of British Columbia, founding President of Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and Dean of Law at McGill University.

Mr. Toope is a graduate of Harvard (AB), McGill (BCL/LL.B), and Trinity College, Cambridge (PhD), where he held a Commonwealth Scholarship. Mr. Toope’s public service includes Chairing the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, serving as Fact Finder for the Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Government Officials in relation to Maher Arar; being a UN Election Observer, the first post-apartheid elections in South Africa, advising on legal and judicial reform in a number of African, Asian, and Caribbean countries; and sitting on the Boards of the Social Sciences Research Council of Canada and the International Development Research Centre of Canada. He has written or co-authored four books on international law, as well as being published in leading global journals on human rights, international dispute resolution, international environmental law, the use of force, international relations, and international legal theory. He also has lectured at universities around the world.

Mr. Toope has been awarded many honorary degrees, which include being elected to the prestigious Institut de droit international, made an honorary Bencher of Middle Temple in London, and elected to honorary fellowships in numerous academic institutions in Canada and the UK. In addition, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and an Officer of the Order of Canada.