Course Catalog

This foundational course introduces the student to the nature, major principles, processes and institutions of the international legal system, the relationship between international and domestic law and the role of law in promoting world public order. Students will acquire an understanding of the conceptual issues underlying this discipline and a critical appreciation of how law interacts with contemporary world politics. Topics include the creation and status of international law, participation and competence in the international legal system, primary substantive norms such as the law regulating the use of force and enforcement procedures.

This course joins two seemingly disparate disciplines – law and science – in an attempt to understand more fully the dense, multidimensional nature of the digital revolution and how we are going to live with it. Human Rights and Digital Technology is designed as an interdisciplinary primer, a guide to examining the critical issues that shape our use of digital technology.

This course will examine the existing international legal framework for the protection of women’s rights and contrast the law with the nearly universal perception that the world of women is a private sphere, one where laws made in the public realm have less weight, or are more difficult to implement due to lack of witnesses, or worse, community acceptance of certain types of gender-based violence. But activists are making progress across the globe in combating insufficient implementation of women’s rights. This course will explore their remarkably innovative strategies to achieve conflict resolution and the protection of women in challenging circumstances.

This course consists of one week of preparatory lectures at AUP at the start of the summer session followed by a one-week visit to The Hague (36 hours of court observation and discussion at one of the International Courts).