Jaap de Zwaan is a lawyer and Dutch emeritus professor of European Union Law.
He started his professional career as a member of the The Hague Bar.
Thereafter he worked for 19 years for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague (European Integration Department and Legal Service) and Brussels (Permanent Representation of the Netherlands to the European Union). He was active in international negotiations (EU decision making, treaty making and accession treaties) and acted in numerous cases as agent for the Dutch Government in legal proceedings before the EU Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
In 1998 Jaap de Zwaan was appointed full time professor of European Union Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Apart from his activities as a European law professor, he served his Law School as Vice-Dean for International Affairs (1999-2001) and as Dean (2001-2004).
From September 2005 to May 2011 De Zwaan was Director of the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, ‘Clingendael’, a think tank as well as diplomatic academy.
In May 2011 he returned to Erasmus University Rotterdam. In March 2014 he delivered his valedictory lecture at that university.
In the period May 2012 until April 2017 De Zwaan was also active, on a part-time basis, as Professor European Integration at the The Hague University of Applied Sciences.
Until the present day Jaap de Zwaan is still working in various fields related to European Union law and policies. His main domains of interest concern respectively the constitutional debate, the internal market cooperation, the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (notably EU asylum and immigration law and policy), enlargement and the external relations of the EU.
