Cand. Jur. (Ghent); Lic. Jur. (Ghent); LL.M. (Columbia); Ph.D. (Cambridge), Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the University of Leiden. 

Freya Baetens is Professor of Public International Law (Faculty of Law, Oxford University), Head of Programmes at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Fellow at Mansfield College. She is also affiliated with the PluriCourts Centre (Faculty of Law, Oslo University) and the Europa Institute (Faculty of Law, Leiden University).

As a Member of the Brussels Bar, she regularly acts as counsel or expert in international and European disputes. She is listed on the EU Roster of Arbitrators and Sustainable Development (TSD) experts, the Panel of Arbitrators and Conciliators of the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), the South China International Economic and Trade Arbitration Commission (Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration), the Xi’An Arbitration Commission, and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre (HKIAC).

She has been a visiting professor at the KU Leuven (Belgium), Max Planck Institute for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law (Luxembourg), Université Paris Nanterre (France), National University Singapore (Singapore), Sydney Law School (Australia), Xi’An Jiaotong Law School (China), FHR Lim A Po Institute (Suriname) and the World Trade Institute, Bern University (Switzerland).

She is the co-editor-in-chief of the Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals journal, serves on the Editorial Board of the Belgian Review of International Law and the Academic Review Board of the Cambridge Journal of International Law and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law.

Her most recent publications include: Identity and Diversity on the International Bench: Who is the Judge? (OUP 2020); Legitimacy of Unseen Actors in International Adjudication (CUP 2019); Sovereignty, Statehood and State Responsibility − Essays in Honour of James Crawford, co-edited with Christine Chinkin (CUP 2015).

As a W.M. Tapp scholar (Gonville and Caius College) and a fellow of the European Trust and the Cambridge European Society, she was awarded a Ph.D. degree from Cambridge University. Previously, she obtained the Cand.Jur./Lic.Jur. degree (LLB/LLM equiv.) magna cum laude at Ghent University and the LL.M. degree with honours at Columbia University in New York (BAEF and Fulbright Fellow).

She is a general public international lawyer, with a particular interest in the law of treaties, responsibility of states and international organisations, privileges and immunities, law of the sea, human rights, trade and investment law, energy law and sustainable development.