The European Union as an Actor in International Law: a Force for the Good?

Jan Wouters (BE) is Jean Monnet Chair ad personam "EU and Global Governance", Full Professor of International Law and International Organizations, and founding Director of the Institute for International Law and of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, an interdisciplinary centre of excellence, at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). He is also Visiting Professor at Sciences Po Paris and LUISS University Rome. He is a Member of the Royal Academy of Belgium for Sciences and Arts, President of the United Nations Association Flanders Belgium, and practices law as Of Counsel at Linklaters, Brussels. He is Editor of the International Encyclopedia of Intergovernmental Organizations, Deputy Director of the Revue belge de droit international and an editorial board member in ten other international journals. He is coordinator of a large-scale FP7 Programme FRAME "Fostering Human Rights Among European (External and Internal) Policies" and of the InBev-Baillet Latour EU China Chair at KU Leuven. Jan Wouters studied law and philosophy in Antwerp and at Yale University (LLM 1990), was a Visiting Researcher at Harvard Law School and obtained his PhD at the University of Leuven (1996). He inter alia taught at the Universities of Antwerp and Maastricht and was Référendaire at the European Court of Justice (1991-94).