Françoise Tulkens

Françoise Tulkens has a Doctorate in Law, a Master’s degree in Criminology and a Higher education teaching certificate (agrégation de l’enseignement supérieur) in Law. She was a Professor at the University of Louvain and has taught, in Belgium as well as abroad, as a visiting professor at the Universities of Geneva, Leuven, Ottawa, Paris I, Rennes, Strasbourg and Louisiana State University, in the fields of general criminal law, comparative and European criminal law, juvenile justice and human rights protection systems. From November 1998 to September 2012, she was a Judge in the European Court of Human Rights, serving as Section President and as Vice-President of the Court. She has been an Associate Member of the Belgian Royal Academy since 2011.

From 2012 to 2016 she chaired the Board of Governors of the King Baudouin Foundation. In September 2012, she took up an appointment as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Advisory Panel for Kosovo, which completed its work in June 2016. From 2013 to 2018 she was a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Union Fundamental Rights’ Agency (FRA), serving as Vice-Chair from 2015 to 2018. From 2016 à 2018, she was co-president of the expert’s commission to evaluate the Belgian anti-discriminations legislations and, until 2019, co-president of the Board of the Institute for the promotion of Islam training in the Wallonia-Brussels Federation.

Since 2016, she is vice-president and president of the Federal Ethics Commission and she is currently member appointed by the Committee of Ministers of the Administrative Tribunal of the Council of Europe (2018-2021). She is member of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom appointed by Lord Neuberger, former president of the UK Supreme Court, at the request of the UK and Canadian Government (2019-) Françoise Tulkens is the author of many publications in the areas of human rights and criminal law and also co-author of reference books. She holds honorary doctorates from the Universities of Geneva, Limoges, Ottawa, Ghent, Liège and Brighton.