JJUA55100U International Law-Making - NOTE: THE COURSE IS CANCELLED IN THE SPRING SEMESTER 2018

This course aims to provide master students from law and other disciplines (such as political science) with a deep theoretical and practical understanding of how international law is made.
In a context of fragmentation and specialization of international law, the number of fora, processes, actors and instruments involved in international law-making has expanded. This reality requires of new frameworks and nuances of normativity to take account of the complex myriad of the international law-making. In turn, these questions open the debate on a number of legal issues, such as legitimacy and accountability. This course intends to give a deep theoretical and practical view on the making of international law, including informal law-making and regime interaction and the interplay with international relations.

The course’s goal is to broader and deeper student’s knowledge of public international law and international law-making and to supplement other bachelor and master courses offered by the faculty of law, such as the bachelor course on Public International Law, which is a more general basic course, and International Organizations, which focuses mainly on courts and tribunals.

The course is divided into four parts: The first part is an introduction to international law and international law creation, reviewing principal contemporary theories and concepts of international law, as they apply to law-making. This part introduces students to the main literature and theoretical debates and complexities in the area. The second part of the course delves into international law-making by studying in depth both formal and informal law-making so as to provide the student with a broader and contemporary framework. The third part explores regime interaction in international law, with a focus on the law-making stage. The last part of the course zooms in how international law is made in main issue-areas and provides the student with case studies to showcase examples, where the framework provided by the course can be applied.