Organisation
United Nations
Position
Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights
Biography
Olivier De Schutter was appointed as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2020.
An academic specialised in economic and social rights, he is also currently a member of the Council of Europe’s European Committee of Social Rights and co-chair of IPES-Food. He previously served as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014, and as a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights between 2015 and 2020. Prior to those appointments, he was Secretary-General of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). He teaches at UCLouvain (Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium) and at Sciences Po (Paris, France).
Speaking in:
#EUSocialForum 2026