Thomas Biersteker

Thomas Biersteker is an internationally recognised expert on global governance, multilateral sanctions, and international policymaking. He is the Gasteyger Professor of International Security Honoraire at the Geneva Graduate Institute, where he previously served as Director for Policy Research and of the precursor to its Global Governance Centre. He is also a Senior Fellow with the Centre for Policy Research of the UN University, based in Geneva.

Professor Biersteker has served as a sanctions expert for the United Nations Security Council and has led several influential research initiatives on the impacts and effectiveness of UN targeted sanctions, the role of international institutions, and the politics of multilateralism. He is the principal developer of UNSanctionsApp and annually conducts UN sanctions training courses in partnership with the UN Secretariat in New York. He has held prior academic appointments at Brown University, Yale University, and the University of Southern California, and has advised a wide range of international organisations and governments on issues related to conflict prevention, global regulation, and sanctions design.

His publications include Targeted Sanctions: The Impacts and Effectiveness of United Nations Action (Cambridge University Press 2016), Informal Governance in World Politics (Cambridge University Press 2024), and numerous scholarly articles and policy reports on global governance and international relations.

He holds a PhD and MS in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a BA in Public Affairs from the University of Chicago.