Professor Jan Klabbers elected to the Whewell Professorship of International Law

The Faculty of Law is delighted to announce that Professor Jan Klabbers has been elected to the Whewell Professorship of International Law.

Professor Klabbers is currently Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki, where he has been based since 1996, having previously taught at the University of Amsterdam. Professor Klabbers served for 20 years as Deputy Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International law and Human Rights and, from 2006 to 2011, as Director of the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in Global Governance Research. He has also served as a member of the Executive Council of the European Society of International Law and as a Panelist for the European Research Council and the Swiss Network for International Studies. He has received numerous teaching awards at the University of Helsinki and was inducted into the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters in 2014. He was the Editor in Chief of the Finnish Yearbook of International Law from 2005 to 2012 and has been Co-Editor of the Nordic Journal of International Law since 1998. He is also one of the founding editors of the International Organizations Law Review, and was its book review editor for seventeen years.

Professor Klabbers is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts in the law of treaties and the law of international organisations. His publications include International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2023, 4th edition), Virtue in Global Governance: Judgment and Discretion (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Treaty Conflict and the European Union (Cambridge University Press, 2009), An Introduction to International Organizations Law (Cambridge University Press, 2022, 4th edition) and The Concept of Treaty in International Law (Kluwer, 1996). Professor Klabbers is currently leading a research project, funded by a €2.5 million European Research Council grant, on relations between intergovernmental organisations and the private sector. 

Commenting on his election to the Whewell Professorship, Professor Klabbers said: "I am very excited to accept this classic position, and consider this appointment one of the greatest honours that can be bestowed on an international legal academic. I look forward to working with brilliant colleagues at the Lauterpacht Centre and the Faculty, working with gifted and motivated students, and generally stepping into a wonderful tradition."

Professor Mark Elliott, Chair of the Faculty of Law, commented: "We are thrilled that Jan has accepted election to the Whewell Professorship of International Law. He will be joining a vibrant community of international lawyers and a Faculty with a long tradition as a global hub for research and scholarship in this field; we look forward enormously to the contributions that Jan will make, and the leadership he will provide, to our work in this area."

Professor Klabbers will take up the Whewell Professorship on 1 October 2025, succeeding Professor Eyal Benvenisti, who will retire as the Whewell Professor on 30 September 2024.