Nicolas Levrat

Pr. Nicolas Levrat is the fourth Special Rapporteur on minority issues. He was appointed by the Human Rights Council on 13 October 2023 and took up his functions as Special Rapporteur on 1 November 2023.

Levrat is a French speaking Swiss, born in 1964. As such, he is a member of a linguistic minority in Switzerland and has been dedicating his academic research and teaching focus on Peoples and minorities rights, Federalism, and on relationships between legal systems.

Holding a PhD in International Law, Prof. Levrat has been a full Professor of International and European Law at the University of Geneva since 2001. At the University of Geneva, he was appointed Director of the European studies in 2007, which he reshaped into the Global Studies Institute in 2013; he was the Director of the International Law Department from 2016 to 2019; and he also launched the Human Rights Week, which has been in place since 2012.

He started his professional career as a European civil servant at the Council of Europe (1991-1994), and then joined the Université libre de Bruxelles, first as a Researcher on minorities issues in Belgium and then as a Junior Professor. In 2022, he was elected 2nd Vice-President of the Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities of the Council of Europe, position which he resigned when taking up his role as Special Rapporteur.

Nicolas Levrat is the author of seven books, editor of another 20, and has published more than 150 scientific articles or book chapters and he has been advising numerous local, regional and national governments, as well as international organisations and NGOs for the past 30 years.