Samuel is a Member of Parliament in Belgium and serves as Deputy Chair for the Foreign Affairs Committee. At the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), he is the youngest ever President of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians.
Samuel is behind Belgium’s inclusion of the crime of ecocide in the new Criminal Code. In 2022, he received the Protection of Civilians Medal from the NGO ‘Handicap International’, for his decisive role in the international agreement against the use of Explosive Weapons in Populated Areas (EWIPA).
Samuel holds a PhD in public international law from the University of Leuven and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He teaches two courses of international law pro bono as a Visiting Professor in Butembo, North Kivu, in the north eastern Democratic Republic of Congo – a region devastated by 25 years of violent conflict.
Since his election, Samuel has fought tirelessly against mass atrocities and human rights abuses. He led the campaign which resulted in the Belgian Parliament’s recognition of crimes against humanity and genocide in the Uyghur Region, for which he was individually sanctioned in 2021 by the Chinese government. He co-chairs the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC).