Chris de Cooker

Chris de Cooker, a Dutch citizen, is a retired international civil servant. He holds law degrees from the University of Amsterdam and Columbia University. He lectured public international law and international administration at the University of Leyden from 1975 until 1984, when he joined the European Space Agency (ESA) to serve in a number of functions, mainly in institutional and general management fields.

He represented ESA in "Co-ordination". He was Chairman of the Co-ordinating Committee on Pension Matters (CAPOC). The last position he held until his retirement in 2011 was that of Head of the International Relations department.

He was from 1997 – 2013 Chairman of the Standing Committee on Supranational Administration and the International Civil Service of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences.

He has for over a decade been an advisor to a number of international organizations (such as EBRD, IMF, IOM, NATO, UN, WHO, WIPO, World Bank, etc.) particularly on their internal dispute resolution systems.

He has published several books and articles, with an emphasis on international administration. He is, e.g., the editor of "International Administration. Law and Management Practices" (2009), of "Accountability, investigation and due process in international organisations" (2005), and of "Governance: International Organisations adapting to changing environments" (2022).

He is an arbitrator and mediator in international civil service disputes. He is President of the Administrative Tribunal of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), President at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Administrative Tribunal, judge at the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) Appeals Tribunal, judge at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Administrative Tribunal and judge at International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD). He is Chair at the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM) Appeals Committee and Mediator at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Organization. He was an ad hoc judge for staff appeals in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2018 and 2021 and Chairman of the Global Fund Appeal Board (2016-2020).