Speech by President of the Republic of Finland Tarja Halonen at the Nordic lawyers' conference in Helsinki 15.8.2002

A world that was once so stable, also for lawyers, is nowadays changing at a constantly accelerating pace. Laws are no longer passed down from mother to daughter, from generation to generation. With the world changing faster and faster, the laws and other rules that regulate it must keep up with development. It appears that to regulate a modern society we need more finely-detailed legislation than has sufficed in the past. It is therefore no wonder if today's people feel that legal provisions are changing faster and faster and becoming more complicated.

Internationalisation is already an everyday thing. Modern technology has made the latest form of internationalisation - globalisation - possible. Rapid communications and above all the great mobility of capital are rendering national regulations inadequate either to promote cooperation or prevent negative effects, and international agreements likewise seem to be always lagging a round behind.

This has led to a completely new need to find different ways of managing the world: from moral codes and ethical guidelines to more and more detailed - and also more and more finely regulated - global agreements, a variety of means are under deliberation. Many observers have already said that global actions need global rules. The UN and its specialised agencies as well as the World Trade Organisation are reflections of the same phenomenon. Even in this changed world, people want something that on the level of the nation-state is called the rule of law.

In early spring this year the International Labour Organisation appointed a commission to examine the social dimension of globalisation. I have the honour to co-chair the commission together with President Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania. Our task is to recommend ways of ensuring that as many individuals, peoples and countries as possible can share the benefits of globalisation, whilst at the same time minimising the number who suffer from its adverse effects.

Better management of globalisation than we have demonstrated to date presupposes closer cooperation in the field of international trade. It calls for a strengthening of the rules that govern the markets for both goods and services and finance. For people to be able to feel that their lives are better secured and companies to be able to function stably, we also need to strengthen democracy and human rights in addition to developing the rule of law. A strengthening of democracy in working life is also among the demands that people are making.

It will probably come as no surprise to you when I confess to being a supporter of the Nordic welfare society. I shall even argue that the question is not whether we can afford to maintain it, but on the contrary whether we could afford to be without it. A welfare society is not only right from the point of view of the individual, but also a good means of competition in this world of globalisation. But how then can we preserve this Nordic heritage of ours?

Internationalisation has left its mark on the Nordic legal systems. I want to emphasise right at the beginning that Nordic cooperation is an interesting example of close and long-lasting cooperation, which is not supranational in character; it is, however, often based on jointly-planned projects, which the national parliaments have themselves approved and in many cases had an input into shaping the details as well. The UN and the Council of Europe, of which we are all members, are already one step closer to having a community character, but still clearly less supranational than the European Union.

Membership of the European Union and the EEA Treaty has brought a broad legislative and a stronger supranational competence. Internationalisation of law will continue. The EC Treaty is now being revised for the fourth time since the EEA negotiations began in the early 1990s. The additions to the Treaty approved to date have meant an expansion of the Community's sphere of action, and this has led to new Community legislation. At the same time, the legislation regulating the Community's actions in its earlier sector of work is being developed through new statutes and directives.

This poses many kinds of challenges to us. Mastery of Community law presupposes broad familiarisation with and careful study of the legal thinking on which it is based. Community legislation contains elements that are alien to our legal system and traditions. The ways in which it is interpreted and applied differ in part from what we are used to in the Nordic countries.

Nevertheless I shall make so bold as to argue that all of us have - if we overlook some minor errors - succeeded well in adapting to Community law and the EEA Treaty. The Nordic countries stand comparison with the older member states well in this respect. I would also like to argue that the Nordic countries have had a positive influence on the European Union in such areas as promoting openness and good administration. How we can strengthen our influence in European and global development is another question.

In the Nordic welfare society model, services have been used to reinforce not only income transfers, but also social justice. Both insurance systems and the system of services can become the focus of demands that they be opened to competition. Assessing efficiency or determining which system offers most advantages in the economic sense is not an uncomplicated matter. From the point of view of the individual, however, it would be good to remember how much stronger, so far at least, our provisions - often constitutionally enshrined - requiring that citizens be treated on a basis of equality are than the consumer-protection provisions applying to the private sector.

Besides examining the points of similarity in our Nordic legislation, we should also look at the differences. I have read with interest Ambassador Ole Norrback's final report on Nordic rights. It reveals that citizens moving from one Nordic country to another still encounter many practical problems relating to such matters as education and training, opportunities to use their own language, the way in which the labour market functions, taxation and social security. Partly - but only partly - problems spring from false expectations. They are also partly due to the fact that agreements made by the Nordic countries do not work in practice or because there is a gap in the agreements net.

As noted in the report, the rights and needs of individuals have always been an important point of departure in Nordic cooperation. Besides that, it is precisely in the Nordic countries that we have been pondering the interdependence between the wellbeing of the individual and of the community. I have noted with satisfaction that the Nordic governments have already begun steps to redress the shortcomings identified in the report. It is also great to see that you have taken up the same themes here at this conference of jurists.

Both between the Nordic countries and in the European Union there has been a desire to facilitate labour mobility. But it seems to have been forgotten that the basic unit of the labour force - the person - has other needs besides doing work. People fall in love, marry, have children, divorce, die. The reports on Nordic legislation concerning family and inheritance rights to be presented at your conference are welcome. They show that our countries' laws in these sectors have in recent decades been tending to differentiate rather than converge. Are there good reasons for this? From the point of view of the private individual, the situation can be quite confusing.

Similarly, the European Union's Community legislation contains many provisions aimed at emphasising family affinity. Indeed, I would like to mention in the same context that the EU did not present a very united front at the UN Special Session on Children last spring and I do not believe that harmonisation of legislation will take place especially soon. Nevertheless, all differences notwithstanding, the importance of this matter to people has been noted in the EU. Now it is time for us Nordic representatives to act together if we want to influence the future of Europe.

To conclude, I would like to draw your attention to how important it is for us to strengthen our common, Nordic, European heritage of values: democracy, human rights and the rule of law. You jurists have an exceptionally great responsibility in this.

Both positive and negative phenomena are multiplying as internationalisation advances. We must work together to ensure that the influence of the positive things triumphs.

Since the events of nearly a year ago, September 11, resisting terrorism has again become a common challenge. A knowledge of our own history could be of help to us Europeans. The people of our continent have experienced countless wars and immeasurable suffering in the course of the centuries. But we have also experienced the joy of having come through adversity. Our Nordic and European experience has been to defend the values we consider important, using means that are worthy of those values.

I have emphasised on many occasions that the European Union should accede to the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. And this should happen irrespective of what solution the ongoing EU Convention produces with respect to EU regulation of human rights. That is because I see acceding to the Council's Convention as complementary to the EU's internal regulation rather than as an alternative to it. The Council of Europe's Court of Human Rights could then exercise oversight to ensure that Community law is properly applied. This could be, on the whole, a good counterweight in the event of anti-terrorism measures becoming tougher.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish you a stimulating and productive conference.