He was educated at the University of Tasmania and the Australian National University. Langlois is the author of The Politics of Justice and Human Rights: Southeast Asia and Universalist Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and co-editor of Global Democracy and its Difficulties (Routledge 2009) and Australian Foreign Policy: Controversies and Debates (Oxford University Press, 2014). His areas of academic endeavour include human rights, international relations, international political theory, political philosophy, and global ethics.