Background
Timmermans was born in 1941 in Rotterdam.
Timmermans was born in 1941 in Rotterdam.
In 1973 he obtained a Doctor of Philosophy in Law Studies at Leiden University.
He has been a judge at the European Court of Justice. He pursued a career as law clerk in the European Court of Justice, working there between 1966 and 1969. He then worked as an official for the Commission of the European Communities between 1969 and 1977.
He subsequently worked as a professor of European Law at the University of Groningen between 1977 and 1989.
Between 1989 and 2000 he was deputy director-general of the Legal Service at the European Commission. In 2000 Timmermans was appointed as a judge of the European Court of Justice.
He succeeded Paul Joan George Kapteyn as the Dutch judge, he himself was succeeded by Sacha Prechal in June 2010. Since his return to the Netherlands he serves as professor at the Law faculty (Pieter Sanders professorship) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Member of the Advisory Council of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Member of the Advisory Council of International Law of the T.M.C. Asser Instituut
Member of the Projects Committee of the European Law Institute
Foreign Correspondent of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.