Ph. D. in civil law with a thesis on "Het
aansprakelijkheidsrecht als sanctie tegen de verstoring van het leefmilieu" (tort
law as a sanction against the disturbance of the environment), Ghent University
law school
(1978)
Academic
functions
Professor at Ghent University Law School, presently in charge of
the courses on Law of obligations, tort law (2nd year) , advanced study of
tort law (fifth
year), and private comparative tort law (LLM-Programme in European and
Comparative Law)
Chairman of the Department of Civil Law (1992-)
Chairman of the Foreign
Relations Committee of the Faculty and Faculty Socrates Co-Ordinator (2000-)
Director
of the LLM-programme in European and comparative Law (2000-
Dean of the Ghent
Law School (1994-1998)
Director of the Center for Environmental Law (1992-2000)
Member of the Board
of Directors of Ghent University (1992-1994)
Director of the Faculty Library
(1990-1994)
Director of the Seminar for Environmental Law (1988-1992)
Academic Secretary
of the Faculty (1987-1989)
Director of the Seminar for Civil and Comparative
Law (1983-1991)
Associate Professor at the Ghent University (1980)
Member of doctoral commissions
at Ghent University, KU.L, U.I.A., U.C.L, V.U.B, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam
Guest
lectures and conferences at the law schools of U.L.B., U.I.A., K.U.L., V.U.B.,
Paris I, Leiden, Edinburgh, London (Queen Mary College),
Rotterdam, Pittsburgh, Shanghai, Chongqing.
Promotor of research projects on liability
law and environmental law financed by the European Union, the D.W.T.C.,
the Ministry of the Flemish
Region, OVAM,
the F.W.O., and Ghent University.
Other professional activities
Advisory work, especially to the federal and Flemish government
on matters of liability law and environmental liability law
UNEP- expert for
the preparation of the liability protocol to the Basel convention; member
of the Belgian delegation at Geneva for the negotiations with
respect
to this protocol and to the liability protocol to the Helsinki Convention
(1993-2002)
Member of the Royal Flemish Academy for Sciences of Belgium (1995-)
Member
of the Jury of the F. Collin Prize, the Elisabeth Haub Prize for environmental
law, the VDK-prize for the Environment; Chairman of the jury
for the quinquennial
Scientific prize of the Turnhout notaries
Member of the Association
for the Comparative Study of the law in Belgium and the Netherlands and of
the editorial boards of the Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht
(Gent) and the Tijdschrift voor Milieurecht (Gent)
Chairman of the Working
Party on Liability and Insurance for Pollution, Products and New Technologies
of the Association Internationale du Droit
des Assurances
(1995-2002)
Co-founder and Chairman of the Belgian Association of Environmental
Law (1985-1997)
Chairman of the Interuniversity Commission for the Restatement
of Environmental Law in the Flemish Region (1989-1995)
Honours
Prize of the Stichting Leefmilieu (1980)
Elisabeth Haub Prize for Environmental
Law (U.L.B. and the International
union for the Conservation of nature (1991)
