Erkki Kourula

Erkki Kourula

Erkki Antero Kourula (born June 12, 1948 in Lappee ) is a Finnish lawyer and was a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague from 2003 to 2015 .

Life

Kourula studied law at the University of Helsinki , where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1971 and a master's degree in 1974. He then completed his doctorate in 1977 with 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 serving as a criminal judge at a court of first instance for a year in 1979, he taught from 1982 to 1983 as professor of international law at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi . Subsequently, Kourula worked as a lecturer at events of the Finnish Red Cross and the Finnish Military Academy, as well as for a period of fifteen years at the University of Helsinki.

From 1985 Kourula worked for the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he held various positions, particularly those related to international law, until 2003. From 1986 to 1989 he was a legal advisor and from 1989 to 1991 head of the Directorate for International Law. He then worked until 1995 as envoy and legal advisor at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the United Nations in New York. 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 was Deputy Director General for Legal Affairs in the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this role, as head of the Finnish delegation, he was actively involved in the negotiations on the Rome Statute , the contractual basis of the International Criminal Court. He then worked as a permanent representative of Finland with the rank of ambassador to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg . In 2002, Kourula took over the position of Director General for Legal Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and represented Finland in this capacity at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg .

A year later, Kourula was elected on List B as a judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he was assigned to the Appeals Division. Kourula was thus one of the first judges of the newly established court, whereby he was one of six judges who were elected for a term of only three years. In January 2006 he was re-elected for a nine-year term. As part of his work as a judge at the International Criminal Court, Kourula devoted himself in particular to drafting the rules of procedure for the Court of Justice and chaired a working group dealing with this. He also represented the President of the Court on several occasions, including at the Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Manila in 2005 .

Kourula has been a member of the International Law Association since 1977 and was vice-chairman of the Finnish national association ( branch ) from 1995 to 1998 .

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.
• Peace-keeping and Regional Arrangements . In: Antonio Cassese (Ed.): United Nations Peace-keeping: Legal Essays . Sijthoff & Noordhoff, Alphen aan den Rijn 1978, pp. 95-123.

Web links

• Short biography on the homepage of the ICC (English, French)
• CV (French; PDF; 81 kB)
• Questionnaire as part of his re-election as a judge at the International Criminal Court (English; PDF; 53 kB)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Author profile in Antonio Cassese (Ed.): United Nations Peace-keeping: Legal Essays . Sijthoff & Noordhoff, Alphen aan den Rijn 1978, p. XIV.
2. ↑ Guy S. Goodwin-Gilland, Stefan Talmon : The Reality of International Law: Essays in Honor of Ian Brownlie . Oxford University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-19-826837-8 , p. XXIV.
3. ↑ Judge Erkki KOURULA (Finland) ( Memento of the original from September 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Last accessed: May 26, 2011.  
4. ↑ Director General Erkki Kourula elected as judge for the International Criminal Court , Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. February 7, 2003. Archived from the original on July 10, 2014 Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 2, 2011.  
5. ↑ Erkki Kourula re-elected as judge for the International Criminal Court , Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. January 26, 2006. Archived from the original on May 20, 2014 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved June 2, 2011.