René Urueña joins the University of Helsinki as Professor of International Law, seeking to strengthen the University's role as a global meeting point for scholars who explore law across regions, disciplines and traditions.
Starting in August, René Urueña will add to expertise in international law at the University of Helsinki. Urueña is currently Professor of International Law at the Universidad de los Andes in Colombia, and a Max Planck Law Fellow.
According to Dean Jukka Mähönen of the University of Helsinki's Faculty of Law, Urueña will strengthen teaching in the national law programmes, the new international master's programme Law and Contemporary Governance and in postgraduate education.
"This hiring is essential in our efforts to keep our Faculty at the forefront of international law. René Urueña bolsters our expertise in international law, global governance, and legal and governance-related questions pertaining to the Global South."
Urueña was recruited to the University of Helsinki through profile-building funding awarded by the Research Council of Finland. This funding supports and accelerates the of Finnish universities to enhance research quality. The latest allocation funds researcher recruitment from abroad.
Research on hidden legal power
Urueña has published widely on international law and global governance.
"I am especially interested in situations in which legal power does not appear in its classical form, but through more technical, dispersed or informal arrangements," Urueña says.
International law often operates in places where major decisions are made through complex institutional assemblages, such as trade regimes, international organisations, and public-private partnerships. These are not abstract spaces. They affect how resources are distributed and how people experience authority.
"One contribution of my work is to show that these arrangements are legal, even when they do not look like traditional legal settings. When an international organisation engages in humanitarian action, or when trade is conducted through highly sophisticated global value chains, law is not simply in the background. It organises authority, allocates responsibility and shapes the possibilities for contestation and accountability."
During his tenure in Helsinki, Urueña hopes to develop this agenda in three connected directions:
The first concerns international law and transformations in the global economy, including the legal reorganisation of trade, investment, development, supply chains and economic security. The second focuses on human rights, especially how legal knowledge is produced not only by courts, but also by communities of practice, social movements, experts, and bureaucracies. The third encompasses digital forms of governance and infrastructure, particularly in public administration systems, where automated decision-making increasingly affects access to rights, benefits and public services.
International law as a language of power
International law and the rules-based world order are said to be in crisis because of geopolitical confrontation, war, economic competition and the return of spheres of influence.
Urueña understands why many feel that international law has become irrelevant but does not agree. Even when states ignore or manipulate legal norms, they do so through legal vocabulary.
"International law provides part of the grammar through which geopolitical conflicts are structured in the first place. It remains one of the central languages through which global power is organised, contested and justified."
As a scholar, Urueña is inspired by research that refuses two easy positions. One is the naïve belief that international law can solve everything. The other is the cynical view that law is irrelevant because power always prevails.
"The most interesting work to me lies between those positions. It takes law seriously without romanticising it. It asks how legal arguments, institutions and practices can open spaces for accountability, redistribution, and democratic struggle, even under difficult conditions."
A new chapter in Helsinki
The new position in Helsinki is a sort of homecoming for René. He first came to the Faculty of Law as a master's student in international law and later returned for his doctorate.
"I arrived in Helsinki many years ago as a young lawyer trying to understand the language, institutions and culture of international law. Returning now as a professor is both moving and humbling. It feels like closing one loop and opening another."
"For me, Helsinki was the place where I learned to think about international law not only as a technical legal field, but also as a way of asking deeper questions about power, responsibility and justice."
As a Colombia-born scholar, Urueña brings with him the perspective of someone whose intellectual and professional life has been shaped by Latin America, by the Global South and by the everyday experience of law as a field of political struggle, institutional creativity and social transformation.
"In that sense, I see this appointment as a bridge. I would like to help deepen conversations between Helsinki, Latin America, Europe, the United States and other parts of the world, especially around human rights, economic governance, technology and democratic transformation."
Perhaps most importantly, René Urueña hopes to inspire students to experience international law not only as a demanding professional craft, but also as a way of thinking critically about the world.
"I want students to see international law not as a distant discipline concerned only with treaties and institutions, but as a living grammar for understanding some of the most urgent conflicts of our time."
