Bert Koenders holds the Pieter Kooijmans Chair in Peace, Justice and Security at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, where his teaching and supervision focus on foreign policymaking and diplomacy, UN peace operations, fragile states, the politics of international intervention, and the foreign-policy challenges of European middle powers in a contested international order. He is also Chair of the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) and Senior Advisor on Fragility to the World Bank.

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Bert Koenders holds the Pieter Kooijmans Chair in Peace, Justice and Security at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs, where his teaching and supervision focus on foreign policymaking and diplomacy, UN peace operations, fragile states, the politics of international intervention, and the foreign-policy challenges of European middle powers in a contested international order. He is also Chair of the Dutch Advisory Council on International Affairs (AIV) and Senior Advisor on Fragility to the World Bank.

Koenders served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 2014 to 2017, including during the Dutch Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2016. He was Minister for Development Cooperation between 2007 and 2010, and a Member of the House of Representatives from 1997 to 2007. From 2011 to 2014 he was Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, serving successively as the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI, 2011–2013) and of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA, 2013–2014). He briefly presided over the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in 2006–2007 and founded the Parliamentary Network on the World Bank and IMF, which he chaired from 2000 to 2007.

Koenders studied political science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the University of Amsterdam, and holds a master’s degree in international relations from Johns Hopkins University. He has taught conflict management and international relations at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna and at Webster University in Leiden. He sits on the Board of Directors of the International Crisis Group and is a Commissioner of the International Commission on Missing Persons; he chairs the Foundation Max van der Stoel and the Curatorium of the Prince Claus Chair.