François Crépeau is Full Professor and holds the Hans and Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, at the Faculty of Law of McGill University. He was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants from 2011 to 2017. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In August 2015, he became Director of McGill's Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism for a three-year mandate. He was appointed to Belgium's International Francqui Professor Chair in Social Sciences for 2017-2018 .
The focus of his current research includes migration control mechanisms, the rights of foreigners, the interface between security and migration, and the interface between the Rule of Law and globalization.
He has given many conferences, published numerous articles, and written or directed five books: Les migrations internationales contemporaines – Une dynamique complexe au cœur de la globalisation (2009), Penser l'international, Perspectives et contributions des sciences sociales (2007), Forced Migration and Global Processes - A View from Forced Migration Studies (2006), Mondialisation des échanges et fonctions de l'État (1997) and Droit d'asile: De l'hospitalité aux contrôles migratoires (1995).
He heads the “Mondialisation et droit international” collection at Éditions Bruylant-Larcier (Brussels) and is a member of several editorial committees: International Journal of Refugee Law, Journal of Refugee Studies, Refugee Law Reader, Refuge, Droits Fondamentaux.
From 2001 to 2008, he was a professor at the Université de Montréal, holder of the Canada Research Chair in International Migration Law, and founding scientific director of the Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM). From 1990 to 2001, he was a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal.
He has been guest professor at the following institutions : Université catholique de Louvain (2010-2015); Institut international des droits de l’homme (Strasbourg) (2001, 2002, 2007, 2008) ; Graduate Institute for International Studies (IUHEI-Genève, 2007), Institut des hautes études internationales, Université de Paris II (2002), Université d’Auvergne-Clermont 1 (1997). He was a Fellow 2008-2011 of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
Until 2011, he also sat on the Quebec Law Society’s Committee on Human Rights and Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, was the “Justice, police and Security” domain coordinator for the Quebec Metropolis Center and was a member of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO. He served as vice-president of the Canadian Human Rights Foundation (now Equitas) (1992-2004) and director of the Revue québécoise de droit international (1996-2004). He participated in observer missions in the occupied Palestinian territories (2002) and in El Salvador (1991). He was also a fellow of the Institute for Research in Public Policies (IRPP). The Barreau du Québec awarded him the Advocatus Emeritus distinction in 2014.
Professor Crépeau is always interested in supervising graduate research on international, comparative and domestic legal issues relating to:
- The rights and freedoms of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, migrant workers, and persons belonging to minorities;
- Migration and refugee policies at local, national, regional or universal level;
- Diversity and multiculturalism policies.