Gareth Evans has been since January 2000 President of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the independent global NGO working with some 135 full-time staff on five continents to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

He came to Crisis Group after 21 years in Australian politics, thirteen of them as a Cabinet Minister. As Foreign Minister (1988-96) he was best known internationally for his role in developing the UN peace plan for Cambodia, helping conclude the Chemical Weapons Convention, and helping initiate new Asia Pacific regional economic and security architecture.

He has written or edited nine books - most recently The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All, published in September 2008 -- and has published over 100 journal articles and chapters on foreign relations, human rights and legal and constitutional reform.

He was Co-Chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001), and a member of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change ( 2004), the Blix Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction (2006), and the Zedillo International Task Force on Global Public Goods ( 2006). In June 2008 he was appointed to co-chair (with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi) the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. He is also a member of the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention.