Gareth Evans (politician)

The Honourable Gareth Evans AC KC FASSA FAIIA
Evans at Chatham House in 2011
Chancellor of Australian National University
In office 1 January 2010 –1 January 2020

He was a member of the UN Secretary General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, whose report A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility, addressing mass atrocity crimes and many other UN reform issues, was published in December 2004.

Evans also served on the UN Secretary-General's Advisory Committee on Genocide Prevention.

Evans had previously served as a member of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (1994–97), co-chaired by Cyrus Vance and David Hamburg. He was also a member of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods, sponsored by Sweden and France and chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, which reported in September 2006.

He is a member of the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative Advisory Council, a project of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis to establish the world's first treaty on the prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity.

Nuclear issues

On nuclear issues, he was a member of the Commission on Weapons of Mass Destruction sponsored by Sweden and chaired by Hans Blix which reported in June 2006; and the Commission of Eminent Persons on The Role of the IAEA to 2020 and Beyond, chaired by Ernesto Zedillo, whose report Reinforcing the Global Nuclear Order for Peace and Prosperity was launched in June 2008. From 2008 to 2010 he co-chaired (with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi) the Australia and Japan sponsored International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament: its report Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers was published in December 2009.

Other organisations

His other recorded affiliations with internationally focused organisations include:

• Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), Convenor
• Asia Society, Member of the Global Council
• Aspen Ministers Forum (chaired by Madeleine Albright), Member
• Aurora Prize, Member of the Selection Committee (since 2015) ^[33]
• Australian Institute of International Affairs, Fellow
• Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, Chair of the International Advisory Board
• Global Leadership Foundation, Member
• Global Panel Foundation-Australasia, Member of the Board of Advisors
• Independent Diplomat, Member of the Advisory Council
• Institute for Economics and Peace, Member of the International Advisory Board
• International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, Member of the Supervisory Council
• Nuremberg International Human Rights Award, Member of the Jury ^[34]
• World Economic Forum (WEF), Member of the Global Agenda Council on Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons
• Global Panel, Member of Global Panel Worldwide

Academic career and published writing

Before entering Australian politics Evans was a lecturer, then senior lecturer, in law at the University of Melbourne, teaching constitutional and civil liberties law, crime and torts, from 1971 to 1976. In 2009, after his retirement from politics and his subsequent career as head of the International Crisis Group, he returned to academic life as an honorary professorial fellow (later professorial fellow) in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne, teaching a graduate course on international policymaking in practice in 2011 and 2012.

He was elected as chancellor of the Australian National University from 1 January 2010, ^[35] replacing Kim Beazley following Beazley's appointment as Australian Ambassador to the United States. Evans was installed by Governor-General Quentin Bryce at a ceremony in Canberra on 18 February 2010.

He is also an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford; a Distinguished Fellow of the Australia India Institute; Chair of the International Advisory Board of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament; and Member of the Advisory Boards of the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy and Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, and the Cambridge Review of International Affairs.

Evans has written or edited 13 books, most recently Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir (Melbourne University Press, 2017). ^[36] His other major works include The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All (Brookings Institution Press, September 2008, paperback edition 2009), ^[37] which was awarded an Honorable Mention in the US Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award 2009 as one of the best three books on international relations published in the previous year, as well as Australia's Foreign Relations (with Bruce Grant, Melbourne University Press 1991, 2nd ed 1995), Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s (Allen & Unwin, 1993), Australia's Constitution (with John McMillan and Haddon Storey, Allen & Unwin, 1983) and the edited collection, Labor and the Constitution, 1972–1975 (Heinemann, 1977). He co-edited the annual Labor Essays series from 1980 to 1982.

Evans has also published nearly 150 chapters in books, monographs and articles in refereed and other journals – and many more newspaper and magazine articles – on foreign relations, politics, human rights and legal reform. ^[38]

Contributions to international relations thinking

Good international citizenship

Evans introduced the idea of "good international citizenship" in his first major speeches as Australian foreign minister, and repeated and refined it in subsequent writing. ^[39] The core notion was that "being, and being seen to be, a good international citizen" should be seen not as the "foreign policy equivalent of boy-scout good deeds", but as a distinct component of any country's national interest, "quite distinct from the familiar duo of security and economic interests":

The interest in question here is more than just the pleasure of basking in approbation. There are many direct reciprocal benefits to be gained in a world where no country can solve all its own problems: my assistance for you today in solving your drugs and terrorism problem might reasonably lead you to be more willing to help solve my environmental problem tomorrow. But the reputational benefit does also count. The perception of being a country willing to take principled stands for other than immediately self-interested reasons does no harm at all – as the Scandinavians in particular seem to have well understood – when it comes to advancing one's own commercial or political agendas. ^[40]

The concept of "good international citizenship" has been specifically attributed to Evans in academic writing; its "idealistic pragmatism" has been seen as a way of bridging or transcending rival doctrines of realism and idealism in international relations theory; and the idea has been advanced as mapping a possible "third way for British foreign policy". ^[41]

Niche diplomacy

"Niche diplomacy" was identified by Evans as one of the characteristic methods of the larger and more familiar concept of middle power diplomacy which has traditionally characterized the approach to international relations of Canada (especially during the Pearson years) and Australia (especially under the Labor governments of Hawke, Keating and Rudd). ^[42] He defined it as "concentrating resources in specific areas best able to generate returns worth having, rather than trying to cover the field. By definition, middle powers are not powerful enough in most circumstances to impose their will, but they may be persuasive enough to have likeminded others see their point of view, and to act accordingly". ^[43] The concept is now familiar in academic discourse, and has been specifically attributed to Evans. ^[44]

Cooperative security

Evans won the 1995 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order (following Mikhail Gorbachev the year before) for his fall 1994 Foreign Policy article, "Cooperative Security and Intra-State Conflict", which was cited as presenting ideas that, following the end of the Cold War "could quicken the process ... to help maintain a new world order". He described "cooperative security" as being a single conceptual theme that effectively captured the essence of three more familiar concepts in international security discourse, viz. comprehensive security, common security and collective security. Its defining – and attractive – characteristics were that "the term tends to connote consultation rather than confrontation, reassurance rather than deterrence, transparency rather than secrecy, prevention rather than correction, and interdependence rather than unilateralism". ^[45]

Honours and awards

On 11 June 2012, Evans was named a Companion of the Order of Australia for "eminent service to international relations, particularly in the Asia Pacific Region as an adviser to governments on a range of global policy matters, to conflict prevention and resolution, and to arms control and disarmament." ^[46] He had previously been made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 2001 for "service to the Australian Parliament, particularly through advancing Australia's foreign policy and trade interests, especially in Asia and through the United Nations", and has been awarded Honorary Doctorates of Laws by the University of Melbourne in 2002, Carleton University in 2005, the University of Sydney in 2008 and Queen's University Ontario in 2010. In October 2005 he and the International Crisis Group were named European and Asian "Heroes of 2005". ^[47] In July 2008, he was selected as an inaugural fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in recognition of his "outstanding contribution to Australian international relations". In May 2010 he was awarded the 2010 Roosevelt Institute Four Freedoms Award for Freedom from Fear for his pioneering work on the responsibility to protect concept and his contributions to conflict prevention and resolution, arms control and disarmament. In October 2011, he was presented by the Nuclear Threat Initiative, led by Sam Nunn and Ted Turner, the Amartya Sen Award "for intrepid and creative leadership in creating momentum toward a world free of nuclear weapons". In December 2011 Foreign Policy magazine cited him, along with Francis Deng, as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for 2011 "for making 'the responsibility to protect' more than academic". ^[48]

Earlier in his career he was designated Australian Humanist of the Year in 1990 by the Council of Australian Humanist Societies, won the ANZAC Peace Prize in 1994 for his "leadership role in the Cambodian Peace Process", was awarded in 1995 the prestigious University of Louisville $150 000 Grawemeyer Prize for Ideas Improving World Order for his 1994 Foreign Policy article "Cooperative Security and Intrastate Conflict", and in 1999 received the Chilean Order of Merit (Grand Officer) for his work in initiating APEC.

In April 2007, Evans gave a lecture entitled "Preventing Mass Atrocities: Making 'Never Again' a Reality" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series.

In 2012 Evans was elected an honorary fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. ^[49]

Personal life

Bruce Grant, Ratih Hardjono, and Gareth Evans

Evans has been married since 1969 to Professor Merran Evans, of Monash University, with whom he has two adult children. They have four grandchildren.^{[ citation needed ]}

In 2002, Evans admitted to having an extramarital relationship with Cheryl Kernot. ^[51]

He has been a lifelong supporter, and was during his time in Australian government a special patron, of the Hawthorn Football Club. His other stated leisure interests are reading and writing, travel, architecture, opera and golf.^{[ citation needed ]}

Books

• Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir (Melbourne University Press, 2017)
• Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015 (with Ramesh Thakur and Tanya Ogilvie-White co-authors), Canberra, Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, 2015
• Inside the Hawke-Keating Government: A Cabinet Diary (Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 2014)
• Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play (with Ramesh Thakur co-ed), Canberra, Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, 2013
• The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008)
• Australia's Foreign Relations (with Bruce Grant), Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, 2nd ed. 1995
• Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s and Beyond, Sydney, Allen and Unwin, 1993
• Australia's Constitution (with John McMillan and Haddon Storey), Law Foundation of NSW & Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983
• Labor Essays 1982: Socialist Principles and Parliamentary Government (with John Reeves co-ed.), Melbourne, Drummond, 1982
• Labor Essays 1981 (with John Reeves and Justin Malbon co-eds), Melbourne, Drummond, 1981
• Labor Essays 1980 (with John Reeves co-ed.), Melbourne, Drummond, 1980
• Law, Politics and the Labor Movement (ed.), LSB, Melbourne, 1980
• Labor and the Constitution, 1972–1975 (ed.), Melbourne, Heinemann, 1977 ^[52]

References

1. Ralph Willis is the other. Of the others holding ministerial office at the beginning and end of the Hawke/Keating governments, Kim Beazley and Brian Howe were initially in the outer Ministry, not Cabinet, and Paul Keating retired for a time to the back bench.
2. See generally Keith Scott, Gareth Evans (Allen & Unwin, 1999), Chapters 2–9
3. Gareth Evans (ed) Labor and the Constitution, 1972–1975 Melbourne, Heinemann, 1977, xv+383 pp; Gareth Evans, John McMillan and Haddon Storey, Australia's Constitution: Time for Change, Law Foundation of NSW & Allen and Unwin, Sydney, 1983, xv+422 pp.
4. During the Keating government, Evans was widely considered as a possible candidate for the High Court of Australia in what would have been the first appointment of a politician appointed to the Court since Lionel Murphy in 1975, but this was never a realistic political option: Adam Harvey, "Evans not for High Court", The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 April 1994, p.5.
5. "Hon Gareth Evans QC, MP". Senators and Members of the Parliament of Australia . Retrieved 11 November 2021.
6. For documentation of the issues and events summarised here see Scott, Gareth Evans, Chapter 10.
7. See for example Forbes, John (June 1996), Chapter Five: Revisiting Mabo: Time for the Streaker's Defence?, archived from the original on 12 March 2015
8. For documentation of the issues and events summarised here see Scott, Gareth Evans, Chapters 11 and 12.
9. For documentation of the issues and events summarised here see Scott, Gareth Evans, Chapters 13 and 14.
10. As reflected both in the many formal awards he has received, and the continuing international demand for his services after leaving government: see "International activity after politics" and "Honours and awards", below.
11. For detailed accounts of Evans's contribution as Foreign Minister see Keith Scott, Gareth Evans, Chs 15–18; David Lee and Christopher Waters (eds), Evatt to Evans: the Labor Tradition in Australian Foreign Policy (Allen & Unwin, 1993); and, from his own perspective, Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations (Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed, 1995).
12. See Ken Berry, Cambodia From Red to Blue: Australia's Initiative for Peace (Allen & Unwin, 1997)
13. Gareth Evans, Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s (Allen & Unwin, 1993) xviii+224 pp.
14. see Australian Senate Hansard, 6 December 1990, http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansards%2F1990-12-06%2F0091%22
15. Daley, Paul (26 October 2008). "For Labor, it's easier being with the Greens". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Archived from the original on 30 January 2016.
16. Gareth Evans on the Hawke-Keating years; Charles Waterstreet on the TV series, Rake, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 13 January 2015, archived from the original on 30 January 2016
17. Nicholson, Brendan (10 June 2008). "Fiery Evans to relish new crisis role". The Sydney Morning Herald. Fairfax Media. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
18. "Julia Gillard Interview Transcript - Part 2". Australian Story. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. 12 March 2006. Retrieved 6 December 2016. I am not, not a Gareth Evans, scream at the staff, chuck an ashtray sort of person.
19. See Chomsky, Noam (3 November 2011), Noam Chomsky: can revolutionary pacificism deliver peace?, The Conversation, archived from the original on 29 January 2013; Pilger, John (23 July 2000), A voice that shames those who are silent on Timor, archived from the original on 8 December 2015; Pilger, John (5 April 2012), East Timor: a lesson in why the poorest threaten the powerful, archived from the original on 17 October 2015
20. See especially Evans, Gareth (3 November 2011), "East Timor and me: A response to Noam Chomsky", Interpreter, Lowy Institute, archived from the original on 12 October 2015
21. Needham, Kirsty (23 June 2010). "Oil pipeline 'better than aid' for East Timor". The Age. Fairfax Media.
22. Geoffrey Barker, The Age, 22 December 1993: "the hero [of the Mabo debate] was undoubtedly ...Evans, who spent more than 48 hours on his feet ...fielding Opposition questions and negotiating with the minor parties. His performance was a political tour de force in overcoming an opposition determination to destroy the legislation by filibuster. It was perhaps the finest moment in his political career". Quoted in Keith Scott, Gareth Evans, p.336.
23. Department of the Parliamentary Library (2003) The Mabo debate: a chronology Accessed 13 May 2012
24. Laurie Oakes (3 July 2002). "Cheryl Kernot and the Unreported Story". The Bulletin.
25. See e.g. Nicholls, Sean (2 May 2012), "Lure of the limelight: has Kristina Keneally got 'relevance deprivation syndrome'?", The Sydney Morning Herald, Fairfax Media, archived from the original on 28 September 2012; http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/lifematters/talkback-relevance-deprivation-syndrome/2979658
26. Keith Scott, Gareth Evans (Allen & Unwin, 1999), p.357.
27. Stephen Solarz (2010). "Transforming an Idea into Reality". 1995-2010 Fifteen Years on the Front Lines - International Crisis Group. ICG. p. 12. Archived from the original on 7 March 2013. Gareth Evans, then Foreign Minister of Australia, who indicated his government would be prepared to provide up to $500,000 in multi-year funding if we decided to move ahead
28. See Fifteen Years on the Frontlines 1995–2010 at http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/about/~/media/Files/misc/Crisisgroup-15-yearsReduced.ashx Archived 3 June 2012 at Archive-It ; Gareth Evans, "Farewell Message on Leaving Crisis Group", at http://www.gevans.org/speeches/cg_farewell.html; and generally the ICG website, http://www.crisisgroup.org
29. See Tom Hazeline, "The North Atlantic Counsel: The Complicity of the International Crisis Group", New Left Review 63, May–June 2010 at http://www.newleftreview.org/?view=2841
30. See e.g. "In praise of ... the International Crisis Group"; http://www.chinapost.com.tw/detail.asp?ID=72461&GRP=p1/TIME-magazine.htm; "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 6 May 2013. Retrieved 10 October 2012.; http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/about/comments-about-us.aspx Archived 19 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine . Clinton declared in 2011 that the ICG is "an extraordinary, important organization that is relied upon certainly across the world":
31. Evans, Gareth; Sahnoun, Mohamed (2002). "The Responsibility to Protect". Foreign Affairs. 81 (6): 99–110. doi:10.2307/20033347. JSTOR   20033347.
32. See, e.g. Edward Luck in Robert I.Rotberg (ed), Mass Atrocity Crimes: Preventing Future Outrages (Brookings Institution Press and World Peace Foundation, 2010), p.112: "clearly the most energetic and determined proponent of R2P has been Gareth Evans, the former foreign minister of Australia and co-chair ... of the ICISS Commission. He is widely credited with coming up with the phrase 'responsibility to protect'"
33. Selection Committee Archived 9 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine Aurora Prize.
34. Jury Nuremberg International Human Rights Award.
35. "Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AC QC". About: Governance. The Australian National University . Retrieved 11 April 2018.
36. Abjorsensen, Norman (2 December 2017). "Book Review: Gareth Evans' 'Incorrigible Optimist: A Political Memoir'". The Sydney Morning Herald .
37. Evans, Gareth J. (2008). The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and for All. Brookings Institution Press. ISBN   978-0815725046.
38. Evans's personal website, http://www.gevans.org contains a comprehensive list of publications.
39. "Australia's Place in the World: The Dynamics of Foreign Policy Decisionmaking", ANU, 6 December 1988, at http://www.gevans.org/speeches/old/1988/061288_fm_australiasplace.pdf; "Australian Foreign Policy: Priorities in a Changing World", AIIA Melbourne, 27 April 1989, http://www.gevans.org/speeches/old/1989/270489_fm_prioritiesinachanging.pdf; see also, e.g., Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations (Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed, 1995) pp.33–5.
40. Gareth Evans, The Responsibility to Protect (Brookings Institution Press, 2008), pp. 229–30.
41. See Nicholas J Wheeler and Tim Dunne, "Good international citizenship: a third way for British foreign policy", International Affairs 74.4 (1998), 847–70 – 848; Tim Dunne and Nicholas J Wheeler, "Blair's Britain: a force for good in the world" in Karen E Smith and Margot Light (eds) Ethics and Foreign Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2001), p168; David Goldsworthy, "Australia and Good International Citizenship" in S.Lawson (ed) The New Agenda for Global Security: Cooperating for Peace and Beyond (Allen & Unwin, 1995); Andrew Linklater, "What is a Good International Citizen?" in Paul Keal (ed) Ethics and Foreign Policy (Allen & Unwin Sydney 1992).
42. Gareth Evans, "Middle Power Diplomacy", Edgardo Boeninger Memorial Lecture, Santiago, 29 June 2011, at http://www.gevans.org/speeches/speech441.html
43. Gareth Evans and Bruce Grant, Australia's Foreign Relations (Melbourne University Press, 2nd ed, 1995) pp.345.
44. "It was Gareth Evans, when serving as foreign minister of middle-power Australia, who gave 'niche diplomacy' its name. For Evans, the term meant, essentially, specialization": Alan K Henriksen, "Niche Diplomacy in the World Public Arena: The Global 'Corners' of Canada and Norway", in Jan Melissen (ed), The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in International Relations (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2005). See also Andrew F.Cooper (ed), Niche Diplomacy: Middle Powers after the Cold War (Macmillan Press/St Martin's Press 1997).
45. "Cooperative Security and Intrastate Conflict", Foreign Policy , No. 96, Fall (1994): 3–20, p.7. Evans had first articulated this concept in his 1995 book, Cooperating for Peace: The Global Agenda for the 1990s and Beyond (Allen & Unwin, 1993), p.16.
46. "Companion (AC) in the General Division of the Order of Australia – The Queen's Birthday 2012 Honours Lists" (PDF). Official Secretary to the Governor-General of Australia. 11 June 2012. p.  2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 June 2012.
47. "A Good Man to Have in a Crisis", Time Europe , Special Edition, 10 October 2005; "International Crisis Group – The Problem Solvers", Time Asia, Special Edition, 10 October 2005
48. The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers, The FP Group, 28 November 2011, archived from the original on 18 March 2013
49. "Fellows List - ASSA". Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
50. Evans, Gareth; Grant, Bruce (1992). Australia's Foreign Relations: In the World of the 1990s.
51. "Evans admits to affair with Kernot". 4 July 2002. Archived from the original on 14 September 2014.
52. Gareth Evans official website "Publications by Gareth Evans" at https://www.gevans.org/pubs.html

External links

• Gareth Evans personal website
• Profile at International Crisis Group, 2009
• Profile at the United Nations, October 2003
• Column archive at Project Syndicate
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Gareth Evans at IMDb
• Lecture transcript and video of Zinni's speech at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego, April 2007
• https://globalpanel.org - Board of advisors, Global Panel Worldwide

Political offices
Preceded by Peter Durack	Attorney General of Australia 1983–1984	Succeeded by Lionel Bowen
Preceded by Peter Walsh	Minister for Resources and Energy 1984–1987	Succeeded by John Kerin
Preceded by Peter Morris	Minister for Transport and Communications 1987–1988	Succeeded by Ralph Willis
Preceded by Bill Hayden	Minister for Foreign Affairs 1988–1996	Succeeded by Alexander Downer
Preceded by John Button	Leader of the Government in the Senate 1993–1996	Succeeded by Robert Hill
Parliament of Australia
Preceded by Michael Duffy	Member of Parliament for Holt 1996–1999	Succeeded by Anthony Byrne
Party political offices
Preceded by John Button	Leader of the Labor Party in the Senate 1993–1996	Succeeded by John Faulkner
Preceded by Kim Beazley	Deputy Leader of the Labor Party 1996–1998	Succeeded by Simon Crean
Business positions
Preceded by Alain Destexhe	President of the International Crisis Group 2000–2009	Succeeded by Louise Arbour
Academic offices
Preceded by Kim Beazley	Chancellor of Australian National University 2010–2020	Succeeded by Julie Bishop