The fourth annual Rule of Law Day will be held at the University of Helsinki's Main Building on Wednesday, 8 October 2025, from 9 a.m. to 12 noon. The event will be conducted in English and can also be followed online.
Rule of Law Day is a free event open to everyone. It brings together leading domestic and international experts in development cooperation and the rule of law from the public sector, NGOs, and academia to discuss successes and challenges in promoting the rule of law. Participation requires registration on the Rule of Law Centre's website .
Each year, in connection with Rule of Law Day, the University of Helsinki's Rule of Law Centre and the Leo Mechelin Foundation award the Leo Mechelin Medal to a distinguished advocate of the rule of law. The programme also includes the recipient's Leo Mechelin Keynote Lecture.
The 2025 Leo Mechelin Keynote Lecturer will be Academician, Professor Emeritus Martti Koskenniemi. Previous keynote lecturers include Professor Emeritus Kaarlo Tuori (2022), Professor and Nobel Laureate James A. Robinson (2023), and Professor Alina Mungiu-Pippidi (2024).
Koskenniemi has served as Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki since 1994 and as Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, which he founded, since 1997. He is one of the world's leading scholars of the rules-based international order and an influential public intellectual.
He received his doctorate at the University of Turku in 1989. He has held visiting or part-time professorships at the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics, the University of Melbourne and Sorbonne University in Paris. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has honorary doctorates from several universities. He has also served as a member of the UN International Law Commission. He was Academy Professor in 2005-2009 and 2013-2017. He received the Finnish Science Award in 2021 and he was granted the honorary title of Academician of Science in 2023.
In addition to the Leo Mechelin Keynote Lecture, the Rule of Law Day panel discussion will focus on the role of academic freedom in upholding the rule of law.
The Rule of Law Centre, established in 2021 under the Faculty of Law at the University of Helsinki, supports the development of the rule of law in developing countries. Its operations are funded in part by development cooperation funds from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.
