Early career

• 1974: Law degree from Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium;^[2]
• 1970s: Alternative career as singer-songwriter, performing (among others) with Ferre Grignard and Wannes Van de Velde, and resulting in a Long Play recording;^[3][4]
• 1979: PhD in law, University of Brussels, Belgium;^[2]
• 1980: PhD thesis awarded with the Henri Rolin-prize;
• From 1985: Professor criminal law at the University of Antwerp;
• Visiting Fellow of the Centre for European Legal Studies (1994–1996) and of the Research Centre for International Law (1996–1997) at the University of Cambridge;^[5]
• 2001: Visiting professor at the University of Stellenbosch;
• 2000–2002: Ad hoc Judge at the International Court of Justice in the Yerodia case;^[2][6]

Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, 2003–2009

• 2003–2005: Ad litem Judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia;^[2][7]
• From 17 November 2005 (term till 2009): Permanent Judge^[2][8] at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Judge of the International Criminal Court, 2009–2018

In March 2012, the Presidency of the ICC announced that Van Den Wyngaert and her fellow judges Kuniko Ozaki and Chile Eboe-Osuji would form Trial Chamber V, which was responsible for the prosecutor's investigation in Kenya. By April 2013, Van Den Wyngaert asked to be excused from hearing a crimes-against-humanity case against Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto after questioning the conduct of the prosecution under Fatou Bensouda.^[9]

When Congolese warlord Germain Katanga was convicted in March 2014 of being an accessory to one count of crime against humanity and war crimes including murder and pillage – only the second conviction in the 12-year history of the ICC –, Van den Wyngaert partially disagreed with her two fellow judges Fatoumata Dembele Diarra and Bruno Cotte.^[10] In her dissenting opinion, she argued Katanga's trial had lasted too long and that he should have been acquitted in 2013 along with his co-accused Mathieu Ngudjolo.^[11] She also held that Katanga was not intentionally responsible for the crimes and said it was unfair to convict him as an accessory when he had originally been charged with being central to the crimes' commission.^[11]

In June 2014 she wrote a dissenting opinion during the pre-trial of the case The Prosecutor v. Laurent Gbagbo and Charles Blé Goudé, holding she was unable to join her colleagues in their decision to confirm the charges against Laurent Gbagbo and that in her view that the evidence was still insufficient.^[12]