Wouter Vandenhole teaches human rights law and holds the UNICEF Chair in Children’s Rights at the University of Antwerp. He chairs the Law and Development research group at the Faculty of Law.

Wouter Vandenhole graduated in law at the University of Leuven (Belgium), received an LL.M. in Law in Development from the University of Warwick (United Kingdom) and holds a PhD. of the University of Leuven. He has previously held positions at the University of Leuven, Tilburg University (the Netherlands) and the European Master’s Degree in Human Rights and Democratisation (Venice, Italy).
 
His research interests include children's rights, human rights, in particular economic, social and cultural rights, and the relationship between human rights law and development.

He is the author of inter alia Article 26: the Right to Benefit from Social Security in the Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2007), Non-Discrimination and Equality in the View of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2005) and The Procedures Before the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Divergence or Convergence? (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2004), and has co-edited inter alia Global Justice, State Duties. The extraterritorial Scope of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law (2013), Re-Member. Rehabilitation, Reintegration and Reconciliation of Children Affected by Armed Conflict (2012), Why Care? Children's Rights and Child Poverty (2010) and Casting the Net Wider: Human Rights, Development and New Duty-Bearers (2007).  

Wouter Vandenhole is a founding member of Human Rights & International Legal Discourse , an international peer reviewed journal that seeks to highlight the interplay between human rights law and international law. He has edited special issues on the interaction between human rights law and international development law (2 HR&ILD 2008/1), and on the interface between human rights and international law with regard to children and armed conflict (HR&ILD 2011/1). He also sits on the editorial board of the Journal of Human Rights Practice and the Flemish journal on children's rights and youth (Tijdschrift voor Jeugd en Kinderrechten).

He chairs the Research Networking Programme "Beyond Territoriality: Globalisation and Transnational Human Rights Obligations" (GLOTHRO). For a short presentation, click here.

He was the Vice-Chair of Cost Action IS0702 on the role of the EU in UN human rights reform (2009-2013), of which he co-coordinated the working group on UN human rights development tools. He is a member of the Academic Network on the European Social Charter (ANESC) and the International Human Rights Obligations Network (IntHRON). He represents the Law and Development research group in the Consortium on Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations and in the Association of Human Rights Institutes (AHRI).

Wouter Vandenhole was the first chair of the Flemish Children's Rights Knowledge Centre (KeKi). He is an active member of the European Network of Masters in Children's Rights; and sits on the steering committee of the Children's Rights Erasmus Academic Network (CREAN).

Teaching
Wouter Vandenhole co-organizes an international interdisciplinary course in children's rights, Children's Rights in a Globalised World: Critical Perspectives (2008, 2010, 2012). Since 2012, a four-week course on human rights for development (hR4DEV) has been set up. In 2013, the thematic module focuses on the right to health.

Research
Wouter Vandenhole's research interests include:
1. Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: justiciability

2. Human rights and development: extraterritorial and transnational obligations 

3. Children's rights in a globalized world: development cooperation - armed conflict - poverty - migration


Current Research
Current research programs focus on children's rights in contexts of development, poverty and migration, and on transterritorial human rights obligations in the field of economic, social and cultural rights.

Selected Publications (in English) - for a comprehensive publication list, click here

- ' NGO Impact on Law-making: The Case of a Complaints Procedure under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child', Journal of Human Rights Practice 2013 (with Gamze Erdem Turkelli and Arne Vandenbogaerde)
Abstract: http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/hus034?ijkey=znzt70ihzrXHaJ0&keytype=ref   Full Text: http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/hus034?
ijkey=znzt70ihzrXHaJ0&keytype=ref  PDF: http://jhrp.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/hus034?ijkey=znzt70ihzrXHaJ0&keytype=ref

- Global Justice, State Duties. The extraterritorial Scope of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in International Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 477 p. (co-author of introductory chapter and chapter on the North-South Divide) (co-editor with M. Langford, M. Scheinin and W. van Genugten).

- 'Mainstreaming children’s rights in migration litigation: Muskhadzhiyeva and others v. Belgium'in E. Brems (ed.), Diversity and European Human Rights. Rewriting Judgments of the ECHR, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, 68-92 (with J. Ryngaert). 

- 'The Convention on the Rights of the Child: repertoires of NGO participation', 12:1 Human Rights Law Review 2012, 33-64 (with Türkelli G. Erdem).

- Re-Member: Rehabilitation, Reintegration and Reconciliation of War-Affected Children, Cambridge, Intersentia, 2012, 568 p. (co-editor with I. Derluyn , C. Mels and S. Parmentier).

- Why Care? Children's Rights and Child Poverty, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2010, 197 p. (co-editor with J. Vranken en K. Deboyser).

- 'The Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: an Ex Ante Assessment of its Effectiveness in Light of the Drafting Process', 10(2) Human Rights Law Review 2010, 207-237 (with A. Vandenbogaerde).

- 'The Convention on the Rights of the Child' in K. DE FEYTER and F. GOMEZ ISA (eds.), International Human Rights Law in a Global Context , Bilbao: University of Deusto, 2009, 451-472 .

- 'The Limits of Human Rights Law in Human Development' in E. CLAES, W. DEVROE and B. KEIRSBILCK (eds.), Facing the Limits of the Law, Berlijn/Heidelberg, Springer: 2009, 355-374.

- 'Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the CRC: Is There a Legal Obligation to Cooperate Internationally for Development?', 17 International Journal of Children's Rights 2009, 23-63.
- 'Water as a Human Right – Water as an Essential Service: Does it Matter?' 26 NQHR 2008, 391-424 (with T. Wielders).
- 'Editorial Introduction: The Interplay between Human Rights Law and Development Law: Potential, Ambiguities and Tensions', 2 Human Rights and International Legal Discourse 2008/1, 3-16.
- 'Conflicting Economic and Social Rights: The Proportionality Plus Test' in E. Brems (ed.), Conflicts Between Fundamental Rights, Antwerpen: Intersentia, 2008, 559-589.
- Casting the Net Wider: Human Rights, Development and New Duty-Bearers, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2007, 462 p. (co-editor with M.E. Salomon and A. Tostensen).
- 'Article 26: the Right to Benefit from Social Security' in A. ALEN, J. VANDE LANOTTE, E. VERHELLEN and others (eds.), A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff, 2007, 44 p.
- 'Third State Obligations under the ICESCR: a Case Study of EU Sugar Policy', 76 Nordic Journal of International Law 2007, 73-100.
- Non-Discrimination and Equality in the View of the UN Human rights Treaty Bodies, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2005, 293 + xiii p.
The Procedures Before the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies: Convergence or Divergence?, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2004, 331 + xx p.
- Protocol No. 14 and the Reform of the European Court of Human Rights, Antwerp: Intersentia, 2005, 153 + xii p. (co-editor, with Paul Lemmens)
- 'Completing the UN Complaint Mechanisms for Human Rights Violations Step by Step: Towards a Complaints Procedure to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights', 21 Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights 2003/3, 423-465.
- 'The Human Right to Development as a Paradox', 36 Verfassung und Recht in Übersee. Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America 2003/3, 377-404.
- 'Human Rights Law, Development and Social Action Litigation in India', 2 Asia-Pacific Journal on Human Rights and the Law 2002, 136-210.