Koen Lenaerts

Koen Lenaerts
President of the European Court of Justice
Incumbent
Assumed office 8 October 2015
Preceded by	Vassilios Skouris
Personal details
Born	(1954-12-20) 20 December 1954 Mortsel, Belgium
Alma mater	Université de Namur Catholic University of Leuven (Dutch) Harvard University

Baron Koen Lenaerts (Dutch: [kuːn ˈleːnaːrts]; born 20 December 1954 in Mortsel)^[1] is a Belgian Professor of European Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the President of the European Court of Justice.^[2][3] He was a member of the Coudenberg group, a Belgian federalist think tank.

Education

He obtained a Candidat en droit (summa cum laude) in 1974 at the Facultés universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix (FUNDP). In 1977, he graduated as a licentiate in law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (summa cum laude, with special congratulations of the Jury). He graduated as a Master of Laws (LLM) in 1978 at Harvard Law School, with a Belgian Fulbright scholarship, and in 1979 as a Master in Public Administration (MPA) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1982, he obtained a PhD in Law 1982 at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, with a comparative study analysing the constitutional case-law of the European Court of Justice and the American Supreme Court.

Career

Since 1983, he has been Professor of European Law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, since 1990 with the title of buitengewoon hoogleraar. He is director of the Institute of European Law of the university. From 1989 until 6 October 2003 he was Judge of the European Court of First Instance (now known as the General Court), and since 7 October 2003 he has been a Judge at the European Court of Justice, where he became vice-president in 2012. From 1984 until 1989, he was Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges. From 1984 until 1985, he was Law clerk to Judge René Joliet at the Court of Justice of the European Communities. From 1986 until 1989, he was a Member of the Brussels Bar acting as attorney in the European Court of Justice, on behalf of the Belgian state. He was made an Honorary Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple, London, in 2010.

In 2004 Lenaerts was ennobled a baron.

Bibliography

• Koen Lenaerts (Author), Piet Van Nuffel (Ed.), Constitutional Law of the European Union, Thomson

See also

• List of members of the European Court of Justice

References

External links

• Koen Lenaerts at the Faculty of Law, KU Leuven
• Remarks of Judge Koen Lenaerts