On 20 September 2024, Professor Koen De Feyter passed away. Unexpectedly. In his office. Koen was professor of public international law. He taught a range of courses on public international law, sustainable development, global legal systems and inclusive and sustainable cities. He served for many years as the director of the Law and Development Research Group and as the chair of the LL.M. Programme. He had assumed the office of the Dean of the Faculty of Law as of 1 September 2024.
Koen joined the University of Antwerp in 1985. He completed his PhD on the human rights approach to development in 1992. He taught at the Institute of Development Policy, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Law at the University of Antwerp, but also at Maastricht University, Free University Brussels and the European Master’s Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation. Koen was a committed and talented teacher and inspired many generations of students. He brought issues to life through powerful storytelling and had the rare ability to distill complex questions to their essence.Koen self-identified as a law and development scholar. He published widely on human rights and development cooperation, the rights of indigenous peoples, human rights and business, and the right to development. Each of his publications is a masterpiece: beautifully written, original, compelling.Koen’s driving force was his quest for justice, in particular for indigenous peoples, local communities and the Palestinian people. Never as a matter of charity, but as an imperative of rights and of structural change. He was a change maker and an institution-builder. Under his leadership, the Faculty of Law became an internationally renowned centre of excellence on law and development. Koen was instrumental in setting up the innovative Masters of Laws program in English, and an unrelenting proponent of diversity and inclusion in the Faculty and beyond. He is the intellectual father and co-founder of the global Law and Development Research Network and has initiated many long-term collaborations with academic partners across the Global South.The Faculty of Law extends its deepest condolences to Koen’s family. He was an exceptional human being and a mentor for so many of us. His legacy will endure in the generations of students and colleagues he inspired, the institutions and communities he spearheaded and his important contributions to scholarship. We will miss Koen immensely.
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