Chris Backes (1959) studied law, politics and Dutch in Freiburg i. Br. and Münster. He gained an LL.M. in Dutch law for foreigners in Nijmegen.

From 1995 until 1998 he worked as Professor of International and European Environmental Law at Tilburg University. From 1998 until 2007 Backes was Professor of Environmental Law at Utrecht University  and Director of the Centre for Environmental Law and Policy/NILOS (CELP/NILOS). From 2007 until 2016 he worked as Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Maastricht University. Since 2016 he joined the Utrecht Centre for Water, Oceans and Sustainability Law (UCWOSL) as Professor of Environmental Law.  Until 2005 he was President of the Dutch Society for Environmental Law. Until the end of 2007 he was a member of the Netherlands Council of Housing, Spatial Planning and the Environment. Chris Backes specialises in sustainability law and environmental law in a broad sense and often does comparative research.