Hilal Elver

Hilal Elver is the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food and a Research Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she is also Co-director of the Project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy housed at the Orfalea Center for Global & International Studies. She started her teaching career at the University of Ankara Faculty of Law. During this period, she was also appointed by the Turkish government as the founding legal advisor of the Ministry of Environment, and the General Director of Women’s Status. In 1994, she was appointed to the United Nations Environment Program Chair in Environmental Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies, University of Malta. Throughout her career, she has done extensive work with national and international human rights NGOs. She has written numerous chapters in books and articles in academic journals ranging from global justice, new constitutionalism, secularism, women’s rights, water rights, environmental security, climate change diplomacy, and food security. She was appointed Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food by the Human Rights Council in 2014. She has a law degree and a PhD from the University of Ankara and an SJD from UCLA School of Law.