Olivier De Schutter (LL.M., Harvard University ; Ph.D., University of Louvain (UCL)) is Professor at the Catholic University of Louvain and at the College of Europe (Natolin). He is also a Member of the Global Law School Faculty at New York University and is Visiting Professor at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne, at the Abo Akademi University and Institute for Human Rights at Turku (Finland), and at Columbia University, where he is currently teaching.

In 2002-2006, 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. He has acted on a number of occasions as expert for the Council of Europe and for the European Union.

Since 2004, and until his appointment as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, he has been the General Secretary of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) on the issue of globalization and human rights.