Erkki Kourula

Erkki Kourula ( born June 12, 1948) is a Finnish lawyer and since 2003 a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Life

Kourula studied law at the University of Helsinki, where, in 1971 a bachelor's and a master's degree earned in 1974. Subsequently, he obtained his doctorate in 1977 Ian Brownlie at Oxford University with a thesis on "The Identification and Characteristics of Regional Arrangements for the Purpose of the United Nations Charter ".

After working for a year in 1979 as a penal judge in a court of first instance, he taught from 1982 to 1983 as a professor of international law at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. Also in the episode Kourula worked as a lecturer at events of the Finnish Red Cross and the Finnish Military Academy, as well as over a period of fifteen years at the University of Helsinki.

From 1985 Kourula worked for the Finnish Foreign Ministry, where he held until 2003 various, in particular international law aligned positions. He was from 1986 to 1989 legal consultant, and from 1989 to 1991 Head of the Directorate of International Law. He then worked until 1995 as an envoy and legal adviser at the Permanent Representation of Finland to the United Nations in New York. Both from 1986 to 1990 and from 1995 to 1997 he was a member of the Finnish delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations. Until 1998 he held the Finnish Foreign Ministry, the Office of the Deputy Director-General for Legal Affairs. In this role, he was head of the Finnish delegation actively participated in the negotiations of the Rome Statute, the contractual basis of the International Criminal Court. He then worked as a permanent representative of Finland to the rank of ambassador to the Euro Europe in Strasbourg. In 2002, Kourula at the State Department, the Office of the Director General for Legal Affairs and represented Finland in this capacity at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the European Court in Luxembourg.

A year later Kourula was elected on the list B as a judge to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he is assigned to the Appeals Division. Kourula was thus one of the first judges of the newly established Court, where he was one of six judges, elected for a term of only three years. In January 2006, was re-elected for a term of nine years. Kourula devoted himself in his role as a judge at the International Criminal Court, in particular the drafting of the Rules of Court, and was chairman of a working group dealing with this. Several times, he also represented the President of the Court, inter alia, the Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in 2005 in Manila.

Kourula is since 1977 a member of the International Law Association and was from 1995 to 1998 Vice Chairman of the Finnish national association ( branch ).

He is married to Pirkko Kourula and has two children.

Publications (selection )

• UN Reform in the 21st Century; A Fork in the Road. With Pirkko Kourula. In: Kansainvälistyvä oikeus. Lapin yliopistopaino, Rovaniemi 2005, pp. 231-241.
• Questions and Observations Relating to the International Criminal Court In: Nordic Cosmopolitanism. Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden / Boston 2003, pp. 327-340.
• Questions and Reflections: Contemporary Security Concerns. With Pirkko Kourula. In: Liber Amicorum Bengt Broms. Publications of the Finnish Association of the International Law Association No. 9, Helsinki 1999, pp. 208-221.
• Peacekeeping and regional arrangements. In: Antonio Cassese (ed.): United Nations Peace - keeping: Legal Essays. Sijthoff & Noordhoff, Alphen aan den Rijn, 1978, pp. 95-123.