After completing his PhD, Toope joined McGill University's faculty. He served as dean of McGill University Faculty of Law from 1994 to 1999. He is the youngest person to have held the position. During his tenure as dean, he led the then-largest capital campaign in Canadian law faculty history to build a new Law library, and oversaw the renewal of the faculty's curriculum. Toope then headed the Trudeau Foundation, named in honor of Canadian Prime MinisterPierre Elliott Trudeau. The Foundation is an independent, private, and non-partisan Canadian educational foundation that focuses on identifying outstanding talent in the social sciences and humanities, thereby building a network to promote public debate on issues of societal importance. The Foundation awards five fellowships and 15 doctoral candidate scholarships annually to recognize outstanding achievement in the humanities and social sciences that exemplify innovative public policy approaches and a commitment to public engagement. Established in 2002, the Foundation manages an endowment of more than C$140 million. In 2006, Toope became the 12th president and vice-chancellor of the University of British Columbia succeeding Martha Piper. He also held an academic position at the university as a tenured professor of law. He assumed the presidential post on July 1, 2006, and held the position for eight years, until June 30, 2014. On April 3, 2013, it was announced that Toope would leave the UBC presidency effective June 2014 to "pursue academic and professional interests in international law and international relations". In January 2015, Toope became the Director of the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs. He is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge since 2017, the first Canadian to occupy this prestigious post. He is concurrently Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law, a Professorial Fellow of Clare Hall, and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. Toope has consulted extensively to the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and to the Canadian International Development Agency. He has won publishing awards from the American Society of International Law and the Canadian Tax Foundation. He has also conducted various human rights seminars for government officials in Canada, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia, and was a member of the UN observer delegation to the first post-apartheid South African elections. He has also served as Research Director, Office of the Special Representative concerning the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People in 1991. His service to the community includes serving on the boards of non-governmental organizations that promote human rights and international development, including the Canadian Human Rights Foundation, the World University Service of Canada and the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
Controversy
Stephen Toope caused controversy in relation to Jesus College's China/UK Global Issues Dialogue Centre. The China Centre website praised Xi Jinping’s “national rejuvenation”, until The Telegraph paper pointed out the term had been extensively used by Mao Tse-Tung for his policies. The Dialogue Centre published in February a supposedly independent report about telecommunications reforms. It praised Huawei, advancing ideas on the subject beneficial to Chinese interests.The report carried a laudatory foreword from the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, Stephen Toope. On July 9, 2020, after Freedom of Information requests, Jesus College admitted it had accepted £200,000 for the Dialogue Centre from a branch of the Chinese State Council, £55,000 from another branch for the China Centre and £150,000 from Huawei for the digital report Prof. Toope had glowingly praised. Until then, not even the Fellows of Jesus College – the governing body – had been informed.
Personal
Toope took up residence in Cambridge in 2018, along with his wife, Paula Rosen, a speech-language pathologist and musical theatre composer. They have three adult children.
