Peeter Järvelaid

In 2003 Järvelaid received the 1st class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Peeter Järvelaid was born in Tallinn to a military family. Järvelaid graduated 1981 from the University of Tartu and received his J. D. from the Moscow All-Union Correspondence Institute of Law in 1990.

Since 1981 he taught in Faculty of Law at the University of Tartu. In 1992 he became full Professor of Estonian legal history and then in 1993 Professor of Estonian legal history. In 1997 the research efforts of Järvelaid received the Fellowship of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which in 1998-2000 and 2012 enabled him to carry out his research activities in the Max Planck Institute for European History of Law and other reputed German academic centers. He then moved to the University Nord, which later evolved into the Tallinn University Law School in 2010, where he was Professor of Law, Head of Studies and Dean. In 1997–2000, Järvelaid was the advisor to the Estonian Ministry of Justice; he also has been the Rector of the Estonian Academy of Security Sciences (2003-2005) and the Estonian Maritime Academy (2006-2007).

Peeter Järvelaid (born 28 November 1957) is an Estonian legal scholar and historian. Järvelaid is a professor in the University of Tallinn. He has developed semiotic and personality-centered research direction, writing hundreds of articles mostly about the European and Estonian legal history and education, published in Estonian, English, German, French, Russian, Latvian, Finnish, Lithuanian and Swedish. Since 2006 his studies have been increasingly concentrated on the international relations in the 20th century, which among others has required intensive archival researches in German and Polish archives. Since 2012 Järvelaid has placed his research emphasis on the German diplomatic missions, with a specific interest in German diplomatic representation in Tallinn.