Keeping Up with the Changing Legal Environment: A Report on the Internationalisation of Legal Education in Finland

Finnish law graduates now face the demands of globalisation meaning that different areas of the world have become more and more intertwined and under each other’s cultural, economic, political and legal influence. It follows that already on the first day at work, both in public and private sectors, novice lawyers are expected to be able to work in and across different jurisdictions. Employers seem to demand that students develop this ability during their studies through studying other ways of thinking about and practicing law in courses on legal theory, public/private international law, comparative law or European law, for example, or participating international activities such as exchange programmes, moot court competitions, or internships abroad.
This report discusses why and how Finnish legal education has become more international (or global and transnational) since the 1950s. Internationalisation is here understood as the proliferation of courses on international, comparative and regional law as well as the introduction of international student and reasearcher exchange programmes. A reason for these developments in education seems to be Finland’s joining various international organisations since the 1950s and so opening up to foreign businesses and international legislation (e.g human rights).
Addressing primarily a reader unfamiliar with Finnish legal culture and education in its sections 2-6 the report strives to to answer the following questions: What subjects are considered international or purely national?; How have the legal academy and profession internationalised, respectively?; How has internationalisation been debated? How does internationalisation manifest in practice?; And (by way of conclusion), is internationalisation of legal education needed for the global lawyers to meet today’s national priorities?