Professor Thakur was a Commissioner and one of the principal authors of The Responsibility to Protect and Principal Writer of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s second reform report; a Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Foundation Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario; and Co-Convenor of the Asia–Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament.
His books include Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey (Indiana University Press); The Group of Twenty (G20) (Routledge); The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy (Oxford University Press); Nuclear Weapons: The State of Play 2015 (CNND); Nuclear Weapons and International Security: Selected Essays (Routledge); The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect, 2nd Ed. (Cambridge University Press); and Reviewing the Responsibility to Protect: Origins, Implementation and Controversies (London: Routledge, 2019).
He is also a regular media commentator; and has served on the NZCGS Board since its inception in 2014.