Document Type

Undergraduate Syllabus

Date

Spring 2025

School

Diplomacy

Course Number

DIPL 3104

Course Description

This course offers an introduction to public international law as a dynamic and contested topic, and presents the field through a wide array of issues and debates that occupy states, governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, and international lawyers in creating and shaping the law. This course especially focuses on historical and social perspectives in law-making.

After the Second World War, public international law and the United Nations system were re-envisioned with a promise to protect the sovereignty and integrity of vulnerably states against aggression, guarantee self-determination of peoples, and work towards universal human rights for individuals. However, the global order that the U.N. maintains largely favors the imperial powers of the past. It has also been increasingly challenged by new powers and ideologies. International lawyers and scholars have been debating these internal contradictions and relationships between law and power, East and West, Global North and Global South from various theoretical perspectives.

This course will provide a grounding in basic modern doctrines and foundational theories of international law, and will offer critiques of these doctrines and theories. It will also present international law as a field of practice, and will examine the roles of various actors in shaping the field. Like all law, international law is storied. It is created by individuals and groups that have concrete interests and allegiances. The course will pay special attention to how those interests and allegiances have shaped the law and its capacity for justice. The second half of the course will focus on substantive areas of international law, such as human rights, the law of armed conflict, international criminal law, and environmental law.

This course will be taught in a conversational style. Our discussions should be a conversation with the reading materials and one another. As such, I will ask questions of the class, as a whole, to prompt discussion. I encourage you to respond intuitively with ease, sharing full or partial thoughts and building on your peers' insights. All manner of comments are welcome, including personal and news stories as long as they engage with the materials and demonstrate reciprocity and deep engagement.

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