Professor the Hon the Hon Gareth Evans was a Cabinet Minister in the Hawke and Keating Australian Governments for thirteen years, including as Minister for Resources and Energy (1984–87) and Foreign Minister (1988–96) when he initiated the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons. After leaving Australian politics, he was President of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group from 2000 to 2009, a member of the Blix Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Zedillo Commission on the Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond, co-chaired with Yoriko Kawaguchi the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament (2009), and from 2010-15 was inaugural Convenor of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN) and Chair of the International Advisory Board of the ANU Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (CNND). He was awarded the 2010 Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Freedom from Fear Award for his pioneering work on the responsibility to protect concept and his contributions to conflict prevention and resolution, arms control, and disarmament. He has written or edited, solely or jointly, twelve books, including Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play (ANU, 2013 and 2015), and has been Chancellor of The Australian National University since 2010.