MA Security and International Law

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
International Courts and Human Rights

Course unit fact file
Unit code LAWS61082
Credit rating 30
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 2
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

  • Introduce students to the general principles of dispute resolution in international law as well as the composition, structure, procedures, governing principles and functioning of the main international courts and tribunals in their case law as it relates to human rights.
  • Introduce students to regional and international human rights legal systems to analyse how rights have been legalised, developed, and enforced through the theory and practice of human rights.
  • Provide students with advanced knowledge, greater understanding, and critical insights into the current systems of human rights legal protection and human rights debates
  • Provide students with an overview on specific rights through the analysis of case law and case study exercises.
  • Develop students understanding of (and ability to use) international human rights law, particularly with respect to evolving global challenges.
  • Provide students with the necessary instruments to determine the appropriate international remedies in case of breaches of human rights.
  • Provide students with the necessary analytical tools to critically assess the politics and agendas behind the invocation of international human rights and to teach students to critically read international judicial decisions.

Aims

  • Introduce the students to the general principles of dispute resolution in international law as well as the composition, structure, procedures, governing principles and functioning of the main international courts and tribunals. 
  • Introduce the students to main challenges faced by international courts and tribunal in practice 
  • Teach students to critically read international judicial decisions 

Teaching and learning methods

The course will be offered through lectures and seminars. For each lecture, students will be requested to read the relevant decisions as they will illustrate how the rules have been applied in practice. The course will combine discussions on the rules and the practice.

Knowledge and understanding

  • Develop an understanding of the general principles governing dispute resolution international law
  • Develop an understanding of the common threads uniting the main international judicial bodies
  • Develop an understanding of contemporary challenges to international dispute resolution 
  • Develop an understanding of the principles and institutions of international human rights law, including their origins, assumptions, contents, limits, and potential.
  • Develop an understanding of how human rights procedures have developed and been shaped by practice

Intellectual skills

  • Be able to analyse the politics of international dispute resolution and international human rights law
  • Be able to critically read international judicial decisions
  • Be able to think analytically about the implementation and development of human rights law and apply this body of law.
  • Be able to analyse contemporary legal issues though the conceptual framework of human rights law.
  • Evaluate the practical use of human rights concepts and argument, and critically evaluate the appropriate remedies for a breach of international human rights law obligations.
  • Be able to critically assess and deconstruct legal arguments based on international human rights law.
  • Be able to use the sources of International Human Rights Law, especially in relation to the regional mechanisms for protection, and before international courts and tribunals.

 

 

Practical skills

  • Be able to find, locate and navigate the human rights case-law of the main international courts and tribunals.
  • Be able to conduct research on human rights law and construct arguments using human rights discourse
  • Be able to critical read human rights case-law.

Assessment methods

4,000 word essay

Recommended reading

A comprehensive prescribed and recommended readings will be included in the course syllabus that will be distributed at the start of the Course.

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Gail Lythgoe Unit coordinator
Iain Scobbie Unit coordinator

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