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Professor Nico Schrijver

Professor Nico Schrijver is Chair of Public International Law at Leiden University, and Academic Director at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University/Campus The Hague. He is also Visiting Professor on Europe and North-South relations at the Université libre de Bruxelles;President of the Netherlands Society of International Law; Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (since 2008); Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague; Member (membre associé) of the Institut de droit international (elected in 2007); and Member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.   

He appeared before the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and as legal counsel in law of the sea cases before special ad hoc tribunals, and as expert in proceedings before the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), and before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. He has working experience in the UN system, including as legal officer for the Office of the Legal Counsel, United Nations. He is Chairperson of the Committee on the International Law of Sustainable Development of the International Law Association (previously General Rapporteur) and Co-Chair (with Dr Kamal Hossain) of the ILA Study Group on UN Reform.

He is a Member of the Human Rights Committee of the Advisory Council on International Affairs of the Netherlands Government; and served, inter alia, as chairperson of the Advisory Council's Committee on the Human Rights Approach to Development Co-operation (2003), Failing States - A Global Responsibility (2004), and Reforming the United Nations: a Closer Look at the Annan Proposals (2005).

He is a Member of the Board of the Netherlands Institute for Human Rights; Member of the 5-member high-level Task Force on the implementation of the right to development of  the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Member of the Advisory Committee on Issues of International Law of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands. He is former Chairman and currently Board member of the Academic Council on the United Nations System, New York/New Haven; Co-founder and Board member of the European Society of International Law.

Professor Schrijver has visiting professorships at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague; at the Université libre de Bruxelles; at the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing; and at the Universiti Teknologi Mara, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He has an extensive publications record.

Selected Publications

The Evolution of Sustainable Development in International Law: Inception, Meaning and Status, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers: Leiden, 2008, 276 pp. (paperback of the course published in Recueil des Cours de l’Académie de droit international de la Haye, Vol. 329 (2007), pp. 217-412).

Sovereignty over Natural Resources: Balancing Rights and Duties, Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1997, xxxi and 456 pp. (reprinted in pocket edition in 2008).     

The Security Council and the Use of Force. Theory and Reality-A Need for Change?, co-edited with N.M. Blokker, Leiden, Martinus Nijhoff, 2005, 308 pp.           

‘Natural resource management and sustainable development’, in T.G. Weiss and S. Daws (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the United Nations, Oxford, 2007, pp. 592-610.

‘UNESCO’s Role in the Development and Application of International Law: An Assessment’, in A. A. Yusuf (ed.), Standard-setting in UNESCO. Normative action in Education, Science and Culture, Essays in Commemoration of the Sixtieth Anniversary of UNESCO, Paris: UNESCO vol. I, 2007, pp. 365-384.           

‘The UN Human Rights Council: a new ‘society of the committed’ or just old wine in new bottles?’, in Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. 20 (2007), no. 4, pp. 809-823.

‘Reforming the UN Security Council in Pursuance of Collective Security’, in Journal of Conflict & Security Law, vol. 12 (2007), no. 1, pp. 127-138.

The United Nations of the Future. Globalisation with a Human Face, Amsterdam: KIT Publishers, 2006, co-authored with Van Genugten, Homan and De Waart, 304 pp.     

The Security Council and the Use of Force. Theory and Reality-A Need for Change?, co-edited with N.M. Blokker, Leiden, Martinus Nijhoff, 2005, 308 pp..

International Law and Sustainable Development: Principles and Practice, co-edited with Friedl Weiss Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2004, 712 pp.

‘The Future of the Charter of the United Nations’, in Max Planck Yearbook of the United Nations Law, vol. 10 (2006), pp. 1-34.     

Unilateral Measures Addressing Non-Trade Concerns. A Study on WTO Consistency , commissioned by the Netherlands Minister for Development Co-operation, co-authored with Peter van den Bossche and Gerrit Faber, 2007, 267 pp.

‘Article 2, paragraphe 4’, and ‘Les études sur les Nations Unies : tendances et perspectives’, in J-P. Cot et A. Pellet (éd.), La Charte des Nations Unies. Commentaire article par article, Economica, Paris, 2005, 3^e éd., resp. vol. I, pp. 437-467 and vol. II, pp. 2241-2252.         

‘UN Reform: A Once-in-a-Generation Opportunity?’, in International Organization Law Review, vol. 2 (2005), no. 2, pp. 271-275.           

‘September 11^th and Challenges to International Law’, in J. Boulden and T.G. Weiss (eds), Terrorism and the UN: Before and After September 11, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004, pp. 55-73 (also published in Chinese Review of International Law, vol. 1, 2006).           

Case note on Netherlands’ Supreme Court decision 18 September 2001 on Desi Bouterse and the December killings in Surinam, in Nederlandse Jurisprudentie 2002, vol. 42 (with Prof. Jan Reijntjes).           

‘The Changing Nature of State Sovereignty’, in British Year Book of International Law, vol. 70 (1999), pp. 65-98.

‘Responding to International Terrorism: Moving the Frontiers of International Law for

“Enduring Freedom”?’, in Netherlands International Law Review, vol. 48 (2001), pp. 271-291.          

‘A Multilateral Investment Agreement from a North-South and International Law Perspective’, in E.C. Nieuwenhuys and M.M.T.A. Brus (eds), Multilateral Regulation of Investment: Legal, economic and political aspects, The Hague: Kluwer Law International, 2001, pp. 17-33.            

‘Sovereignty versus Human Rights? A Tale of UN Security Council Resolution 688 (1991) on the Protection of the Kurdish People’, in M. Castermans, F. van Hoof and J. Smith (eds), The Role of the Nation-State in the 21st Century, The Hague: Kluwer, 1998, pp. 347-357.           

‘The Use of Economic Sanctions by the UN Security Council: An International Law Perspective’, in H.H.G. Post (ed.), International Economic Law and Armed Conflict, Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1994, pp. 123-61.           

‘Introducing Second Generation Peace-keeping: the case of Namibia’, in 6 African Journal of International and Comparative Law (1994), pp. 1-13.           

‘Latin America and International Regulation of Foreign Investment’, XXXIX Netherlands International Law Review (1992), with P. Peters, no. 3, pp. 355-84. 

The World in Turmoil: Testing the UN’s Capacity, Hanover, New Hampshire: Academic Council on the United Nations System, co-author, 1992, 150 pp.           

with J. Kaufmann, Changing Global Needs: Expanding Roles for the United Nations System, Hanover, New Hampshire: Academic Council for the United Nations System, 1990, 139 pp.           

‘The UN Council for Namibia vs. Urenco, UCN and the State of the Netherlands’, in Leiden Journal of International Law, vol. I (1988), pp. 25-48.           

The United Nations Under Attack, Aldershot: Gower, co-edited with J. Harrod, 1988, 156 pp.           

‘The taking of foreign property under international law: a new legal perspective?’, with W.D. Verwey, in Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, vol. XV (1984), pp. 3-96.