Jaakko is Full Professor in Law and Globalisation since April 2018. PhD (Public Law) in 1995. Before Helsinki he held several full professorial chairs: Comparative Public Law (Uni Vaasa 98-03), Constitutional Law & Jurisprudence (Uni Eastern Finland 04-10), Legal Culture & Legal Linguistics (Uni Lapland 11-14), and Comparative Law and Constitutional Law (Uni Lapland 14-18). In 2006-07 he held the position of Senior Research Fellow with the Academy of Finland. In 2002-03 he served as a Dean in Vaasa.

 

Jaakko is an elected member of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters and a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law. He holds the position of Docent at the universities of Eastern Finland, Lapland, and Vaasa. He is also an invited fellow at the Maastricht European Private Law Institute. Jaakko is member of several journals' advisory boards (eg Journal of Comparative Law, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law).

 

He has held visiting positions in Maastricht University, Riga Graduate School of Law (Latvia), Hong Kong University, Edinburgh University (MacCormick Fellow), and Aberdeen University. Specialist areas include theory of comparative law, comparative constitutional studies, legal globalisation, legal cultures, legal history, and Nordic law. Jaakko is a firm supporter of international legal scholarship, underlining the importance of studying law in context and in a multidisciplinary manner. 

 

His recent research concerns interdisciplinary methodology, legal globalisation, and comparative legal history. He is a frequent invited speaker at international conferences on - broadly understood - comparative law. List of publications contains over 250 publications (books, articles, case comments, reviews, edited works). Articles have been published in leading law journals (eg American Journal of Comparative Law, Chinese Journal of Comparative Law, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies), and books and book chapters by major publishers (eg Cambridge University Press, Hart Publishing, Edward Elgar Publishing, Routledge).

 

Beyond research he lectures, leads seminars, holds tutorials, and supervises PhD researchers. Jaakko welcomes PhD proposals in the fields of comparative law, legal globalisation, legal linguistics, and comparative constitutional studies.

 

He served 12 months stint as a Research Vice Dean in 2022. He has also served in numerous committees and boards at the university since 2018 (eg Master's Programme Deputy Director, Faculty Teaching Skills Evaluation Committee, Faculty Research Committee, University Scientific Council, Helsinki University Press, Helsinki College of Advanced Studies). From 2025 he is a member of the Council for Social Sciences and Humanities at the Research Council of Finland.