Peter Gastrow

Director of Programs | gastrow@ipinst.org

Peter Gastrow joined IPI as Senior Fellow in April 2009. His research and policy work focuses on transnational organized crime and related threats and involves a review of the current international framework for countering organized crime. He forms part of the Coping with Crisis program and focuses on multilateral responses to new transnational security threats.

Peter joined IPI from South Africa, where he was Cape Town Director of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). His work there related to organized crime, money laundering, corruption, and governance issues in sub-Saharan Africa. He has served as expert adviser to the South African government and as a member of various expert groups and panels of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

After obtaining degrees in economics and law from the University of Natal, Peter worked in the office of the Attorney-General in Durban, before establishing his own legal practice as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa. He served as a member of the South African parliament where he concentrated on justice, policing, and constitutional matters. He was involved in initiatives to address political violence in South Africa during the 1980s and participated in the establishment of the National Peace Accord in 1991. He thereafter served as a member of the National Peace Committee and of the National Peace Secretariat, which was charged with the implementation of the Accord and the establishment of Peace Committees. In December 1993 he was appointed Chairperson of the Law and Order Sub-Council, which formed part of South Africa’s transitional government structures.

After the April 1994 election, Peter was appointed as Special Adviser to South Africa’s Minister for Safety and Security with the main focus on police transformation. He was Chairperson of the Minister’s Interim Advisory Team with the task of providing strategic advice on the amalgamation and transformation of the different police agencies whilst simultaneously retaining the capacity and morale of the police to combat crime effectively.

Peter has been published widely and has been a frequent commentator in the South African media on matters relating to organized crime, corruption, and criminal justice.

Selected Publications

• Peter Gastrow, “Tackling Security Threats: International Organised Crime,” in A Dialogue of the Deaf, Essays on Africa and the United Nations, edited by Adekeye Adebajo and Helen Scanlon (Cape Town: Centre for Conflict Resolution, 2006).
• Peter Gastrow, “Reforming the Police Whilst Maintaining Public Security,” in Transitional Justice and Human Security, edited by Alex Borain and Sue Valentine (Cape Town: International Center for Transitional Justice, 2006).
• Peter Gastrow, “The Origin of the Convention,” in The Containment of Transnational Organized Crime: Comments on the UN Convention of December 2000, edited by Albrecht J. and Fijnaut C. Iuscrim (Freiburg: Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Law, 2002).
• Peter Gastrow, and Mark Shaw, “Stealing the Show? Crime and its Impact in Post-Apartheid South Africa,” Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 130, No. 1 (2001): 235.
• Peter Gastrow, “Theft from South African Mines and Refineries,” ISS Monograph No. 54, Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2001.
• Peter Gastrow, “Triad Societies and Chinese Organised Crime in South Africa,” ISS Paper No. 48 Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2001.
• Peter Gastrow, “Organized Crime and the State’s Response in South Africa,” Transnational Organized Crime 4, No. 1 (2001): 56.
• Peter Gastrow, Bargaining for Peace – South Africa and the National Peace Accord (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1995).