Theo van Boven's Biography.
UN Special Rapporteur on Torture 2001 - 2004
Theodoor Cornelis van Boven (1934)
University degrees
1959 - Master of Law, University of Leiden, Netherlands
1960 - Master of Comparative Law, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA
1967 - Doctor of Law, University of Leiden, Netherlands
Previous positions
- Official of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1960 - 1977)
- Lecturer in Human Rights Law, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (1967 - 1977)
- Netherlands representative on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (1970 - 1975)
- Director of the Division of Human Rights of the United Nations (1977 - 1982)
- Visiting Professor at Harvard School of Law (1987) and New York University School of Law (1990)
- Member of the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities (1975 - 1976, 1986 - 1991)
- Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Rights to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1990- 1993)
- Member of the Group of Independent Experts of the International Labour Organization to Monitor Sanctions and Other Measures against Apartheid (1990 - 1993)
- Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1994)
- Head of the Netherlands delegation to the United Nations Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of an International Criminal Court (Rome, 1998)
- Member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (1992 - 1999)
Present positions
- Professor of Law at the University of Maastricht, Netherlands (former Dean of the Faculty of Law, 1986 - 1988)
- Holder of the Cleveringa Chair at Leiden University, Netherlands
- Special Rapporteur on torture of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
- Member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary forms of Slavery
- Vice-President of the International Institute of Human Rights, Strasbourg
- Vice-President of the International Commission of Jurists, Geneva
- Member of the Executive Council of SOS Torture, Geneva
- Member of the Board of the International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism, Tokyo
- Member of the Board of the International Council on Human Rights Policy, Geneva
- Member of the Advisory Council of International Service for Human Rights (Geneva)
- President of the Netherlands Society of International Law
- Member of the Human Rights Commission of the Advisory Council on International Affairs of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Member of the Board of the Beggars Resistance ("Geuzenverzet") Foundation 1940 - 1945 (Vlaardingen, Netherlands)
- Member of the Jury of the Human Rights Award of the City of Nuremberg (Germany)
Principal publications
- International Protection of Religious Liberty, Assen, 1967 (doctoral thesis)
- People Matter, Views on International Human Rights Policy, Amsterdam, 1982
- The Right to Restitution, Compensation and Rehabilitation for Victims of Gross Violations of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Final Report 1993 in UN doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/8)
- General Course on Human Rights, Collected Courses of the Academy of European Law, 1993 - Vol. IV - 1
- Numerous articles on international human rights and humanitarian law, selected and edited in: Human Rights from Exclusion to Inclusion; Principles and Practice (eds. F. Coomans, C. Flinterman, F. Grünfeld, I. Westendorp, J. Willems), Kluwer Law International 2000.
Honours
- Laureate of the Louise Weiss Prize, Strasbourg (1982)
- Doctor honoris causa of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium (1982), the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, Netherlands (1988) and the University of New York at Buffalo, USA (1991)
- Recipient of the Right Livelihood Honorary Award, Stockholm, 1985
- Recipient of the 1996 Human Rights Prize of the International Service for Human Rights, Geneva
- Recipient of Netherlands Royal Decorations (Officer in the Order of Orange Nassau (1974), Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion (1986), Commander in the Order of Orange Nassau (1999)
- Recipient of the Clara Wichmann medal, Amsterdam, 2001.
