Johan Verbeke is a Guest Professor in Modern Diplomacy at the Brussels School of Governance and a Visiting Professor with the University of Brussels (VUB) and the University of Lille (UCL, France). At the VUB he teaches the newly introduced Master’s course ‘Modern Diplomacy’. He is also a Senior Fellow with Egmont – the Royal Institute for International Relations who’s Director General he was until the spring of 2020.
Johan Verbeke holds degrees in both law and philosophy obtained in Belgium, France and the US where he graduated at the Yale Law School. Verbeke has been a diplomat for over 35 years living and working in the Middle East, Central Africa, South America and the Caucasus. In Brussels he has been the chief spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as the ‘Chef de Cabinet’ to three Ministers of Foreign Affairs successively. Verbeke has had diplomatic assignments in the US for over 12 years, twice in Washington and once in New York where he was the Belgian Permanent Representative to the UN, including as a member of the Security Council. He was later appointed by the UN Secretary General as his Personal Representative in Lebanon and, later, Georgia. His penultimate assignment was as Ambassador in London in the pre-Brexit years. He closed his career as Ambassador in Washington under the Obama administration
