Olivier De Schutter

Olivier De Schutter

Olivier De Schutter is a legal academic and human rights expert. A Harvard graduate now resident in Belgium, he was appointed UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council in March 2008 and assumed his functions on 1 May 2008.^[1] He still teaches international human rights law, European Union law and legal theory at the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium, as well as at the College of Europe. He is also a visiting professor at Columbia University.

The right to food

The son of a diplomat, his primary and high school education took place in Bombay (now Mumbai), India; Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; and Kigali, Rwanda. He studied law at the Université catholique de Louvain and at Harvard University, before obtaining a Ph.D. from Louvain-la-Neuve. His doctoral thesis was published in French as Fonction de juger et droits fondamentaux. Transformation du contrôle juridictionnel dans les ordres juridiques américain et européens, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1999, 1164 pp. His subsequent publications are in the areas of governance and human rights, with a particular focus on the issue of globalization and human rights and economic and social rights more generally, and on the protection of fundamental rights in the European Union. Among his books on human rights are International Human Rights Law. Cases, Materials, Commentary, published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. In his work, he seeks to link the human rights principles of participation, accountability, and non-discrimination, with the idea of learning-based public policies, that are permanently tested and revised in the light of their impact on the poorest and most vulnerable. He also seeks to explore the relationship between regulatory frameworks and economic analysis, developing a form of experimentalism that tests economic propositions against the possibility of different institutional arrangements, and that tests legal rules against their impacts on livelihoods.

International Federation for Human Rights

Before being appointed the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, De Schutter was the General Secretary of the International Federation for Human Rights, and international human rights non-governmental organisation based in Paris focused on the issue of globalization and human rights (2004–2008). Between 2002 and 2007, he chaired the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a high level group of experts set up at the request of the European Parliament providing the European institutions with independent expertise on fundamental rights issues and reporting on the situation of fundamental rights in the EU.

Family life

Olivier De Schutter is married to Anne Carlier, with whom he has three children.

References

1. ^ Olivier De Schutter | United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. srfood.org 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2011.

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Name	De Schutter, Olivier
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Short description	Legal academic and human rights expert
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