L.B. (Montpellier I), LL.M. (Lyon I),  LL.M. (ULB, Belgium), Ph.D (UCLouvain), post-doctoral research fellow, University of Antwerp. 

Dr. Frison is a lawyer specialized in biodiversity, agro-biodiversity and biosafety issues. She conducted PhD research at the Centre for Philosophy of Law (CPDR) from the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) and at Centre for Intellectual Property Rights (CIR) from the Katholieke Universiteït Leuven (KULeuven) in Belgium on issues related to international law and governance of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. Her PhD thesis is entitled “Towards Redesigning the Plant Commons: A Critical Assessment of the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-Sharing of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture”.

She holds an LL.B. (Université Montpellier I, France, 2002), an LL.M. in International and Trade Law (Université Lyon I, France, 2003), and an LL.M. in Public International Law (Université Libre de Bruxelles – ULB, Belgium, 2004). Since 2004, Christine is a legal research fellow at the CISDL, where she participates to various biosafety and biodiversity projects, including the editing of a forthcoming book entitled “Biosafety Becomes Binding – Legal Aspects of Implementing the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety”.

In 2011, she co-edited a book on agro-biodiversity issues entitled “Plant Genetic Resources and Food Security: Stakeholder Perspectives on the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture” with Dr José T. Esquinas-Alcázar, former Secretary of the United Nations FAO Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, and Francisco López, Officer of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources secretariat. Christine also carries out consultancy contracts for various international organizations (including the United Nations Environment Programme and Bioversity International), NGOs and governments. She has served as a legal adviser to the Belgian Federal Ministry of Environment (SPF-Env), where she remains a member of the Belgian Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) Contact Group. She regularly served on the Belgian ABS delegation in various ABS related international meetings between 2006 and 2009. In 2006, she performed a national survey on the use of genetic resources by Belgian users and on the degree of knowledge and application of international biodiversity obligations by these users (CBD and Bonn Guidelines) for the Belgian SPF-Env in collaboration with the Centre for Philosophy of Law.

French-language native, she is fluent in English and Italian, has a passive knowledge of Dutch and some notions of German and Spanish.