In 2002-2006, he chaired the EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights, a high-level group of experts which advised the European Union institutions on fundamental rights issues. He has acted on a number of occasions as expert for the Council of Europe and for the European Union. Since 2004, and until his appointment as the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, he has been the General Secretary of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) on the issue of globalization and human rights.
Since 1995, he has worked extensively on issues of governance, in a number of research projects funded by the European Community. In 1995-1998, he worked with the Forward Studies Unit of the European Commission to prepare the reform of governance in the EU. This led to the publication of O. De Schutter, N. Lebessis, and J. Paterson (eds.), Governance in the European Union, OOPEC, Luxemburg, 2001, as well as to the adoption of the White Paper on European Governance (COM(2001)428 final, 25.7.2001). It also inspired his articles “Europe in Search of Its Civil Society”, European Law Journal, vol. 8, n° 2, June 2002, pp. 198-217 ; as well as, more recently, “Fundamental Rights and the Transformation of Governance in the European Union”, chapter 5 of the Cambridge Yearbook on European Legal Studies, 2007, pp. 133-175 ; and “Corporate Social Responsibility European Style”, European Law Journal, vol. 14, No. 2, March 2008, pp. 203-236.
Olivier De Schutter is the author of a number of books, including Fonction de juger et droits fondamentaux. Transformation du contrôle juridictionnel dans les ordres juridiques américain et européens, Bruxelles, Bruylant, coll. “ Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Droit de l’U.C.L.”, t. XXIX, 1999, 1164 pp. ; Le droit international des droits de l’homme devant le juge national, Bruxelles, Larcier, 1999 (with S. van Drooghenbroeck), 624 pp. ; Discriminations et marché du travail. Liberté et égalité dans les rapports d’emploi, coll. “ Travail et Société ”, Bruxelles, Bern, Berlin, Franfurt/M., New York, Oxford, Wien, P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2001, 234 pp. He edited Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, Hart Publ., Oxford and Portland-Oregon, 2006, based on his teaching at New York University. He is also the co-editor of La Charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne. Sa contribution à la protection des droits de l’homme en Europe, Bruylant, Bruxelles, 2002 (co-ed. J.-Y. Carlier), 304 pp. ; L’institution du droit pénitentiaire. Les enjeux de la reconnaissance de droits aux détenus, Paris-Bruxelles, L.G.D.J.-Bruylant, 2002 (co-ed. D. Kaminski), 308 pp. ; Monitoring Fundamental Rights in the EU. The Role of the Fundamental Rights Agency (co-ed. Philip Alston), Oxford, Hart, 2005, 282 pp.
Since a number of years, O. De Schutter has been specializing on the protection of social rights and on the impact of globalization on the enjoyment of human rights. His recent publications relate to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (‘Le Protocole facultatif au Pacte international relatif aux droits économiques, sociaux et culturels’, Revue belge de droit international, 2006, n°1, pp. 1-57) and on the human rights responsibilities of transnational corporations. He has studied the question of transnational corporations in relation to the right to development (‘Transnational Corporations as Instruments of Human Development’, in Ph. Alston & M. Robinson (dir.), Human Rights and Development : Towards Mutual Reinforcement, Oxford Univ. Press, 2005, pp. 403-444), or in relation to the duties of actors such as the European Union to better control transnational corporations (‘The Accountability of Multinationals for Human Rights Violations in European Law’, in Ph. Alston (dir.), Non-State Actors and Human Rights, Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law, Oxford Univ. Press, 2005, pp. 227-314 ; ‘The liability of multinationals for human rights violations in European law’, in E. Brems et P. Vanden Heede (eds.), Bedrijven en mensenrechten. Verantwoordelijkheid en aansprakelijkheid, Antwerpen-Apeldoorn, Maklu, 2003, pp. 45-106).
O. De Schutter has focused in particular on the question of the extraterritorial obligations of States (‘L’incrimination universelle de la violation des droits sociaux fondamentaux’, in La compétence universelle, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2004, pp. 209-245; ‘Globalization and Jurisdiction : Lessons from the European Convention on Human Rights’, Baltic Yearbook of International Law, vol. 6 (2006), pp. 183-245), a topic on which he prepared an important report for the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on transnational corporations and human rights (Extraterritorial Jurisdiction as a tool for improving the Human Rights Accountability of Transnational Corporations, background report to the seminar organised with the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Brussels, 3-4 November 2006. He has taught widely on the human rights duties of transnational corporations, as a member of the Global Law School Faculty at New York University and, in 2007-2008, at Columbia University, where his courses will also address the impact of international trade on human rights (see O. De Schutter (dir.), Transnational Corporations and Human Rights, Hart Publ., Oxford and Portland-Oregon, 2006.
At the European level, the EU Network of independent experts on fundamental rights, which prof. De Schutter has chaired since it was established in 2002, has constituted a reference for the institutions of the European Union, which set up this advisory panel of high level experts in order to be provided with an expertise in the field allowing them to better mainstream human rights in their activities. The tasks of this group have now been taken over, since 2007, the the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.
In the work of the EU Network of independent experts on fundamental rights, professor De Schutter has sought to favor the coherence between the European system of protection of human rights and the universal layer of protection (see most recently his article ‘Binding the EU to International Human Rights Law’, Yearbook of European Law, vol. 27 (2008) (with Israel de Jesus Butler), pp. 277-320). He has pleaded in particular for the inclusion in the law of the European Union of the social rights included in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, in various ILO Conventions, and in the Council of Europe European Social Charter. Within the Council of Europe, he is the coordinator of the Academic Network of the European Social Charter, which is the main instrument of the Council of Europe in the field of social and economic rights. He prepared a report on the accession of the European Union to the European Social Charter (L’adhésion de l’Union européenne à la Charte sociale européenne, également paru comme EUI Working Paper LAW No. 2004/11, 42 pages, developed in ‘Anchoring the European Union to the European Social Charter : The Case for Accession’, in G. de Búrca et B. de Witte (dir.), Social Rights in Europe, Oxford Univ. Press, 2005, pp. 111-152), as well as a number of studies on the protection of social rights in Europe, both in the framework of the Council of Europe (‘The Protection of Social Rights by the European Court of Human Rights’, in : P. Van der Auweraert, T. De Pelsmaeker, J. Sarkin & J. Vande Lanotte, Social, Economic and Cultural Rights. An Appraisal of Current European and International Developments, Antwerpen, Maklu, 2002, pp. 207-242) and in the framework of the European Union (‘Les droits et principes sociaux dans la Charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne’, in : J.-Y. Carlier & O. De Schutter (dir.), La Charte des droits fondamentaux de l’Union européenne, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2002, pp. 117-148; ‘L’Union européenne et les droits sociaux’, in Mercedes Candela Soriano (ed.), Les droits de l’homme dans les politiques de l’Union européenne, Bruxelles, Larcier, 2005, pp. 106-134).