Erkki Antero Kourula (born 12 June 1948) is a

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

judge who served as a judge of the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute individuals f ...

(ICC)."International Criminal Court"
''The New York Times'', "Times Topics", retrieved February 20, 2012 Judge Kourula was elected for an initial term of three years in the first election of judges to the court in 2003, and was re-elected in 2006 for a further nine-year term. He was elected from List B, the list of judges with specific experience and knowledge of

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

. List A consists of judges who have experience in criminal law. At the ICC, Judge Kourula is a member of the appeals division, a position he has held since his election to the court. He is the first Finn to be elected as an International Criminal Court judge. Judge Kourula holds a degree in

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

from the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

and a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

in international law from the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. In 1979, he was appointed as a judge of first instance in Finland. Between 1982 and 1983, he was a professor of international law at the

University of Lapland The University of Lapland is located in the city of Rovaniemi, Finland. It was founded in 1979. While UiT The Arctic University of Norway is the northernmost university in the world, the University of Lapland is the most northern university in t ...

and he later worked in various roles within the Finnish government, including as the director-general of legal affairs in the Ministry of Legal Affairs, as ambassador to the Council of Europe, and as legal advisor at the Permanent Mission of Finland to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoniz ...

, where he monitored the establishment of international

tribunal A tribunal, generally, is any person or institution with authority to judge, adjudicate on, or determine claims or disputes—whether or not it is called a tribunal in its title. For example, an advocate who appears before a court with a single ...

s to investigate allegations of war crimes in Rwanda and the former

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

. He was also the head of the Finnish delegation to the Rome Conference on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, where the formation of the ICC was initially approved. He is married to Dr. Pirkko Kourula and they have two children. He speaks Finnish, English, French, Russian, Swedish and German.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kourula, Erkki 1948 births Living people 20th-century Finnish judges International Criminal Court judges University of Helsinki alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford Date of birth missing (living people) Finnish judges of international courts and tribunals 21st-century Finnish judges