Nationality
Canada
Year of election
2021

Function(s)

Vice-Chancellor and Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge

Area(s) of Expertise

  • International dispute resolution
  • Human rights
  • Use of force
  • Legal theory and international relations
  • General international law

Biography

Prof. Toope is 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, and President of the University of British Columbia. A former Dean of Law, McGill University, Toope was also Chair of the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances.

A graduate of Harvard (AB 1979), McGill (BCL/LLB 1983) and Cambridge (PhD 1987), where he studied under Professor Sir Derek Bowett, Toope has published numerous books and articles in global journals on human rights, international dispute resolution, international environmental law, the use of force, and international legal theory. With Prof. Jutta Brunnée he received the 2011 Certificate of Merit for Creative Scholarship from the American Society of International Law. Toope has undertaken many public service roles for the Government of Canada and in 2015 was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Selected publications

Studies in Arbitration Between States and Private Persons (Cambridge: Grotius Publications, CUP, 1990)

  • “Norm Robustness and Contestation in International Law: Self-Defence Against Non-State Actors” (2019) 4 J Global Sec Stud 73-87 (co-author Prof. Jutta Brunnée)
  • “Self-Defence against Non-State Actors: Are Powerful States Willing but Unable to Change the Law?” (2018) 67 ICLQ 263-286 (co-author Prof. Jutta Brunnée)
  • “Interactional Legal Theory, the International Rule of Law and Global Constitutionalism” in A. Lang & A Weiner, eds., Global Constitutionalism (Cambridge: CUP, 2017) (co-author Prof. Jutta Brunnée)

 

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