Françoise Tulkens

Françoise, Baroness Tulkens (born 12 September 1942) is a Belgian lawyer and expert in criminal and penal law, and former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights. She served as a member of the Court since 1998, Section President since 2007, and vice-president from February 2011 until her term ended in 2012.

Early life

Tulkens was born in Brussels, the capital of Belgium. She studied law, earning a doctorate in 1965 and practising at the Bar until 1968, when she was appointed Research Fellow with the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique). She was awarded the agrégation (higher education teaching qualification) in 1976 and the same year took up a post as Professor of Law in the Université catholique de Louvain of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo. In 2019, Tulkens was appointed to the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, chaired by Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury.

In 2021, Tulkens presided over the Turkey Tribunal, a citizens' tribunal on Turkey's human rights record that sat in Geneva from 20 to 24 September 2021 with a panel of six members. The tribunal delivered its opinion on 24 September 2021 and published a motivated final opinion on 7 October 2021. .

Other activities

Other positions Tulkens chaired the board of governors of the King Baudouin Foundation from 2012 to 2016, and over the same period served on the United Nations Human Rights Advisory Panel for Kosovo. From 2013 to 2018 she was a member of the scientific committee of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. .

Honours

Honours Commander of the Order of the Crown. Conferred the noble title of Baroness in the Belgian nobility. Honorary doctorates from the universities of Geneva, Limoges, Ottawa, Ghent, Liège and Brighton.