source: www.ohchr.org
Mr. 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 has been lecturer in law at the University of Leicester (UK) and has been teaching European Union law, international and european human rights law and legal theory at numerous universities in New York, France, Finland, Portugal, Benin and Puerto Rico.
Mr. De Schutter is the founder and coordinator of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights and the Director of the International Center for the teaching of human rights in Universities, at the International Institute of Human Rights. He is, inter alia, the co-founder and General Secretary of the Journal des tribunaux – Droit européen, member of the Scientific Committee of the Revue belge de droit international and the Global Law School Faculty at New York University.
Mr. De Schutter is the author of several expert reports for the Council of Europe, such as in the framework of the accession process of central and eastern European countries to the Council of Europe. He is the author and co-author of dozens of books and articles about issues ranging from european law to immigration law, from transnational corporations to international law.
Mr. De Schutter is an expert on social and economic rights and on trade and human rights, who served between 2004 and 2008 as a Secretary General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).He was appointed Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council in March 2008 and assumed his functions on 1 May 2008.