Olivier De Schutter

Olivier De Schutter is Professor of Law at the University of Louvain (UCL) and at the College of Europe (Natolin). He holds a LL.M. from Harvard University, a diploma cum laude from the International Institute of Human Rights (Strasbourg) and a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Louvain. He is a visiting professor at Columbia University on a regular basis since 2008. He has been leading several EU Framework Programmes since 2006, and has been awarded the Francqui Prize in 2013 in recognition of his contributions to the theory of governance, EU law and human rights.

Mr. De Schutter, an expert on social and economic rights and on trade and human rights, published widely on transnational corporations and human rights, on trade law, and on rural development issues. His recent academic work focuses on the relationship between human rights and sustainable development, as well as on the justiciability of economic and social rights.

After serving between 2004 and 2008 as a Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), Olivier De Schutter was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council in March 2008 and assumed his functions on 1 May 2008. His mandate was renewed in 2011 for another three years. In his capacity as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food since 2008, he has presented fifteen thematic reports to the UN General Assembly or the UN Human Rights, as well as 13 reports on the various countries he has visited officially, including a number of low-income countries, middle-income countries such as Brazil or Mexico, or high-income countries such as Canada.