LSTS Members

Contact

Mathias Vermeulen
Law Science Technology & Society (LSTS)
Building B, room 4C311
Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Pleinlaan 2
B-1050 Brussels
Belgium

Phone
secretary +32 2 629 24 60
direct +32 2 629 13 87
fax +32 2 629 26 62

Email
mathias.vermeulen@vub.ac.be

Mathias Vermeulen is a Research Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy and a phd-candidate at the Research Group on Law, Science, Technology & Society at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

His research interests include counter-terrorism policies; the EU's area of justice and home affairs; the impact of the use of new technologies on human rights, especially on the right to privacy; and accountability and oversight mechanisms of security agencies.

At the European University Institute he is the research assistant of Prof. Martin Scheinin in his capacity as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism. He assists the Special Rapporteur in drafting reports for the UN Human Rights Council and the General Assembly and prepares country missions. He represented the Special Rapporteur in the UN's Counterterrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) Working Group on Terrorist's Use of the Internet. At the EUI he was a researcher for the FP7-funded DETECTER project (Detection Technologies, Terrorism, Ethics and Human Rights). From 2012 onwards he will be involved in other FP7 projects at the EUI.

In March 2011 Mathias joined the LSTS-team on a half-time basis to participate in the EMSOC-project (User Empowerment in a Social Media Culture). He will write a legal PhD on the scope of the right to privacy in public places. Mathias is also the Belgian member of the advisory board of Privacy International.

Earlier he worked at the International Commission of Jurists on the Eminent Jurist Panel on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights in Geneva, where he also did an internship at the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights. He was a visiting researcher at the Institut fuer Friedensforschung und Sicherheitspolitik (IFSH) in Hamburg (Germany) and at the Centre for European Security Studies in Groningen (the Netherlands).

Mathias graduated from the European Master's Programme in Human Rights and Democratisation (Venice/Hamburg) and has an LL.M. in International Law (Groningen) and a Master in Political Sciences (Ghent).