Matias Hellman began his studies at the University of Helsinki in 1990. It took a few years before he reached any kind of certainty as to what field to pursue. “First I studied mathematics. It was my favourite subject in upper secondary school, but at university it failed to keep my interest. The next year I enrolled in business school. In 1992 I was drawn to studying Finnish, and the following year I tried studying music education at the Sibelius Academy. Of these subjects, only Finnish ended up being one of my minors.”

When he was working for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Matias Hellman was sent to former Yugoslavian territory as a spokesperson and a liaison officer with the local populace. “The Tribunal recognised that people in the countries under its jurisdiction lacked sufficient information on the Tribunal or that the information was distorted or one-sided, which in turn had a negative impact on attitudes towards the Tribunal and the willingness of the authorities to cooperate with it. That is why the ICTY decided to establish an outreach programme and send employees to the region to correct misconceptions.”

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is known for large international judicial proceedings. One of the best known of these is probably the investigation into the crisis in Darfur. However, it is seldom remembered that the ICC is a very young organisation, founded only in 2002, and actual operations began even later.

I was proud of my university during my studies, and still am. Every once in a while I find myself boasting about how university education in Finland is both free and open to everyone. The atmosphere is inclusive, students are given a great deal of freedom, and, above all, the opportunities to learn do not depend on wealth.