Professor Martti Koskenniemi FBA

Martti Koskenniemi (born 1953) is Academy Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Erik Castren Institute of International Law and Human Rights. He was a member of the Finnish diplomatic service in 1978-1994 and of the International Law Commission (UN) in 2002-2006. He has held visiting professorships in, among other places, New York University, Columbia University, University of Cambridge, London School of Economics, and Universities of Brussels, Melbourne, Paris and Sao Paulo. He is a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and has a doctorate hc. from the Universities of Uppsala, Frankfurt and McGill. His main publications include From Apology to Utopia; The Structure of International Legal Argument (1989/2005), The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (2001) and The Politics of International Law (2011). He is currently working on a history of international legal thought from the late medieval period to the 19th century.