Olivier De Schutter (LL.M., Harvard ; Ph.D., UCL) is Professor of Human Rights at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) and Global Law Professor at New York University . He is the coordinator of the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights and a Member of the European Group of Legal Experts on Discrimination, previously of the European Group of Experts on Disability Discrimination. He has published extensively on international and human rights, and has litigated a number of cases before the European Court of Human Rights. His most relevant publications in combating disability discrimination in the EU are a book, Discriminations et marché du travail. Liberté et égalité dans les rapports d'emploi (P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2001), which offered a first examination of the promises of the Directives based on Article 13 EC in the field of employment, and a text on « Reasonable Accommodations and Positive Obligations in the European Convention on Human Rights », which shall appear as a chapter of the volume co-edited by C. Gooding and A. Lawson, Disability Rights in Europe (forthcoming, Hart Publ., 2005).

He is also the author of the report on «  Pre-Employment Inquiries and Medical Examinations as Barriers to the Employment of Persons with Disabilities: Reconciling the Principle of Equal Treatment and Health and Safety regulations under European Union Law  » (2004) for the European Group of Experts on Disability Discrimination, and of the report on « The EU Equality Directives in the Context of the Prohibition of Discrimination under European Human Rights Law » for the European Group of Legal Experts on Discrimination (2005). He is currently co-editing with G. Quinn Equality and Disability (forthcoming, Bruylant).