Major General (ret) Patrick Cammaert has a distinguished military career in both The Netherlands with the Royal Netherlands Marine Corps and the United Nations, where he served as Sector Commander in Cambodia (UNTAC), as Assistant Chief of Staff in Bosnia/Herzegovina (UNPROFOR), as Force Commander in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), as Military Advisor to the Department of Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO), and as General Officer Commanding the Eastern Division in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC).

Since his retirement from the military in 2007, he has been an effective expert advocate with regard to issues such as leadership in crisis circumstances, international peace and security, protection of civilians, civil-military cooperation in peace support operations, peacekeeping, and security sector reform. Major General Cammaert has advised the senior management of UN Department for Peace Keeping Operations (DPKO), UN Development Programme (UNDP) and UN WOMEN on strategic planning issues such as Integrated Training Development, the protection of civilians under immediate threat of physical violence and sexual gender based violence (SGBV) in armed conflict.  He was the lead consultant for the drafting and implementation of scenario-based training on conflict related sexual violence and a UN Female Military Officers Course. His responsibilities have included carrying out fact finding/assessment and evaluation missions to several UN Missions such as in DRC, Lebanon, Sudan, S-Sudan, Haiti, Liberia and Chad and as Special Envoy to Sri Lanka for the Special Representative of the Secretary General for Children in Armed Conflict. He was the Head of the UN Secretary General’s Board of Inquiry for certain incidents in Gaza in 2014, headed in 2016 the Board of Inquiry for the violence in Malakal S-Sudan and lead the Secretary General’s Independent Special Investigation into the violence in Juba at the end of 2016. Major General Cammaert is a regular senior mentor at UN Senior Leadership Courses (SML), at Intensive Orientation Courses for new Force Commanders (IOC), at Female Military Officers Courses (FMOC) and at Contingent Commanders Courses of the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI).

In 2008, Major General Cammaert was awarded the Carnegie-Wateler Peace Prize in the Peace Palace in The Hague.  He is a member of the advisory board and Ambassador of the Mukomeze Foundation, which helps women and girls who survived rape and other forms of sexual violence in Rwanda. He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and he is a member of the International Advisory Group of the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. Patrick Cammaert joined the board of Center For Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC) in May 2016. In 2015 he was a member of the High Level Advisory Group for the Global study on UNSCR 1325. He graduated at the Dutch Higher Command and Staff College and the Top Management Course at the Armed Forces War College in The Hague.