Olivier De Schutter

Olivier De Schutter received his LL.M. from Harvard University and Ph.D. from the University of Louvain (UCL). He has served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food since May 2008. De Schutter is also a Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and at the College of Europe (Natolin), Member of the Global Law School Faculty at New York University, and a visiting Professor at Columbia University.

In 2002-2006, he chaired the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a high-level group of experts which advised the European Union institutions on fundamental rights issues. He has acted on a number of occasions as expert for the Council of Europe and for the European Union.

Since 2004, and until his appointment as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, he has been the General Secretary of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) on the issue of globalization and human rights.

He has been a visiting professor at Columbia University on a regular basis since 2008. Between 2002 and 2007, Mr. De Schutter was the coordinator of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a high-level group of experts from the then EU-25 Member States that provided advise to the European Commission and the European Parliament (LIBE Committee) on human rights protection in the European Union. He is the author of several expert reports for the Council of Europe and for the European Union.

His publications are in the area of international human rights and fundamental rights in the EU, with a particular emphasis on economic and social rights and on the relationship between human rights and governance. His most recent book is International Human Rights Law (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2010).