SCHRIJVER, Nico

SCHRIJVER, Nico

Professor, Public International Law, Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University

Since September 2017 he serves as State Councillor in the Council of State of the Netherlands, which is the highest administrative court of the Netherlands and the principal legal advisory body of the government and the parliament. Previously, he was Senator in the Dutch house of parliament (2011-2017), where he served as the Chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Development Co-operation and Defence and leader of the Dutch delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the OSCE. Currently, Nicolaas Schrijver is also the President of the Institut de droit international, one of the most renowned institutes in the field of international law. He is a former Chair of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (2000-2002) and also served as the President of the International Law Association (2010-2012) and President of the Royal Netherlands Society of International Law (2003-2011). Furthermore, he is member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since 2007. During 2009-2016 he served as independent expert member on the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, including as vice-chair during 2010-2012.

Since 1995 he is also honorary visiting professor of The European Union and Co-operation with Developing Countries at the Universite libre de Bruxelles, Brussels.

Nico Schrijver is the author of the books Sovereignty over Natural Resources. Balancing rights and duties (Cambridge: CUP, 1997; paperback reprint 2008), The Evolution of Sustainable Development in International Law (Leiden: Brill, 2008; Chinese edition with Social Sciences Academic Press, Beijing, 2010),  Development without Destruction. The UN and Global Resource Management (New York/UN Intellectual History Project; Bloomington: IUP, 2010) and Public International Law as World Law (in Dutch; The Hague: Boom, 3rd ed. 2018) as well as numerous co-edited books, book chapters and academic articles.

Professor Schrijver appeared as legal counsel before the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and as an expert before various international investment and law of the sea tribunals. In the early 1990s he also served as Legal Officer in the Office of the Legal Counsel, United Nations, New York.