After completing his PhD, Toope joined McGill University's faculty. He served as dean of
McGill University Faculty of Law from 1994 to 1999. 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 Minister
Pierre Elliott Trudeau. 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 was named
Officer of the Order of Canada in 2015. On October 1, 2017, he became the 346th person to serve as
Vice-Chancellor at
Cambridge University in England, becoming the first non-Briton to do so. 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 holds a number of honorary doctorates, including from the University of Alberta, the University of British Columbia, McGill University and the University of Bristol. In 2019, he received an honorary LLD from the
Law Society of Ontario. The same year, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His service to the community includes serving on the boards of organizations that promote human rights and international development, including the Canadian Human Rights Foundation, the
World University Service of Canada, the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and Canada's
International Development Research Centre (IDRC). In a 2018 op-ed he criticized British politicians for "condemning UK universities as broken and in need of market discipline." During his annual university address, in 2020 he announced Cambridge was removing fossil fuel investments from its portfolio. On September 20, 2021, Toope announced he would be stepping down as vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, two years short of completing his seven-year term. His last day in the role was September 30, 2022. In May 2022, he was selected as the 5th President of
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), commencing November 1, 2022. ==Personal==