Olivier De Schutter

Olivier De Schutter is co-chair of IPES-Food, and since May 2020 is the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. He also served as UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008-14 and was elected to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights from 2014-20.

With an LLM from Harvard University, and a PhD from the University of Louvain, he teaches at UCLouvain and at Sciences Po Paris, and has taught in the past at New York University, Columbia University, UN Berkeley and Yale University.

In 2013, he was awarded Belgium’s top scientific award, the Prix Francqui, for his contribution to the advancement of EU law, the theory of governance, and human rights law. In 2002-06, 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. 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 governance.