Gareth Evans (politician) - Honours and Awards

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." 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’. 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 Franklin and Eleanor 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".

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.