Prof. Dr. Nico Schrijver is emeritus Professor of Public International Law at Leiden Law School.

More information about Nico Schrijver

Nico Schrijver is emeritus Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. During 2005-2017 he was the Academic Director of the Grotius Centre and Head of the Department. Since 1 September 2017 he also serves as State Councillor, Division of Legislation, in the Council of State of the Netherlands. From June 2011 till September 2017 he was a member of the Senate of the Dutch house of parliament. In the Senate he served as the chairperson of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Developent Co-operation, the vice-chair of the Senate Committee on European Affairs and leader of the Dutch delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europa.

Schrijver is a member of the Institut de Droit International since 2007 and its president during 2017-2019, and member of the Curatorium of The Hague Academy of International Law (since 2016). During 2010-2012 he served as the president of the worldwide International Law Association and during 2008-2016 he was a member and vice-chair of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Schrijver is also visiting professor of The European Union and Co-operation with Developing Countries at the Université libre de Bruxelles and the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Furthermore, he is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as the chairperson of its Section on Legal Sciences. Currently, he is the chair of the Academy's Committee on Freedom of Academic Pursuit. 

Schrijver has ample experience as legal counsel in international litigation and appeared before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and specialized tribunals on international investment disputes. He also serves frequently as an expert in such proceedings. 

Since 2018 he is a judge ad hoc in a Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Among many other publications Nico Schrijver is the author of Sovereignty over Natural Resources. Balancing rights and duties (Cambridge: CUP, 1997; reprint 2008), The Evolution of Sustainable Development in International Law (Leiden: Brill, 2008; Chinese edition with Social Sciences Academic Press, Beijing, 2010),  and Development without Destruction. The UN and Global Resource Management (Bloomington: IUP, 2010; with the 2012 award of the Academic Council United Nations System for the best recent book on UN issues); Internationaal Publiekrecht als Wereldrecht (The Hague: Boom 2020, an international law textbook in Dutch.

Publications