Stephen Toope

Stephen J. Toope OC, FRSC, LLD is President and CEO of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). He previously served as the 346th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, becoming the first non-UK national to hold the post. He has also held leadership positions as Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, President of the University of British Columbia, President of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, and Dean of Law at McGill University.

A graduate in History and Literature from Harvard and in civil and common law from McGill, Toope earned a Ph.D. in International Law from Trinity College, Cambridge. His research and publications focus on human rights, international dispute resolution, environmental law, the use of force, and international legal theory.

Toope has a distinguished record of public service, including chairing the United Nations Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, serving as Fact Finder for the Maher Arar Commission of Inquiry, acting as a UN election observer in South Africa’s first post-apartheid elections, and co-chairing a Task Force of the Royal Society of Canada on the Resilience of Knowledge Systems. He has served on numerous boards in the nonprofit sector, including the Mastercard Foundation, Public Policy Forum, Conference Board of Canada, Royal Conservatory of Music, Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, and the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (Equitas), and currently chairs the Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company.

Toope has been awarded multiple honorary degrees, elected to the Institut de droit international, made an honorary Bencher of Middle Temple, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2019) and an Officer of the Order of Canada (2015). He has three adult children and four grandchildren.