• Vita

    Heikki Pihlajamäki is Professor of Comparative Legal History at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Law. In 2013-14, he was International Francqui Professor at the University of Ghent. The Academy of Finland appointed Pihlajamäki to the chair of Academy Professor for the five-year term 2021-26. His research focuses on the legal history of the early modern period, and encompasses geographically Europe and the Americas. Within legal history, Pihlajamäki’s main subject areas include procedural law, criminal law, legal sources, colonial law, and the legal profession. His leading publications include The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History (co-edited, 2018); ”Merging Comparative Law and Legal History – Towards an Integrated Discipline”, American Journal of Comparative Law, Vol. 66:4 (2018); Conquest and the Law in Swedish Livonia (ca. 1630–1710): A Case of Legal Pluralism in Early Modern Europe (Brill: Leiden, 2017); Medieval Canon Law: The Origins of Modern Criminal Law, in M. Dubber, T. Hörnle (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law (2014), pp. 201-224 (co-authored); and From the Judge's Arbitrium to the Legality Principle: Legislation as a Source of Law in Criminal Trials (co-edited, 2013).

  • Research Project

    Comparing Colonial Laws

    The project will provide a comparative account of how early modern colonial laws of England, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal evolved. The project will set the colonial laws in two important contexts: the historical continuation that links the colonial experience to the middle ages and the early modern context of continental European empires (Sweden, Germany, and Russia). According to the hypothesis of this study, the differentiation followed from the differences in the interests that England, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal had overseas. The project’s breakthrough potential is twofold. First, the project sets the legal orders of the early modern powers traditionally defined as colonial powers in close context with the other European empires expanding at the same time (Sweden, Russia). Second, the project will systematically compare early modern overseas legal orders with each other. Culturally contextualizing and comparative methods best characterize the approach of the project.

  • Selected Publications

    Pihlajamäki, Heikki et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History, Oxford 2018.

    Pihlajamäki, Heikki, Merging Comparative Law and Legal History – Towards an Integrated Discipline, in: American Journal of Comparative Law 66:4 (2018).

    Pihlajamäki, Heikki, Conquest and the Law in Swedish Livonia (ca. 1630–1710). A Case of Legal Pluralism in Early Modern Europe, Leiden 2017.

    Pihlajamäki, Heikki (co-author), Medieval Canon Law. The Origins of Modern Criminal Law, in: Dubber, Markus D./Hörnle, Tatjana (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law, Oxford 2014, 201-224.

    Pihlajamäki, Heikki et al. (eds.), From the Judge's Arbitrium to the Legality Principle. Legislation as a Source of Law in Criminal Trials, Berlin 2013.