90-777, International Law in the Modern World
12 units
Prerequisites: None
Delivery Format: On-Campus
Description:
International law and the international system have undergone a
profound transformation and expansion in modern times, in terms of
the international law-making process and the sheer number of new
international treaties and other instruments; the principal actors
in the international arena and the emergence of new states,
organizations and tribunals; new roles for individuals and
non-state actors; the growth of important new subject areas such as
international economic law, and areas relating to the global
commons such as the oceans and seas, Antarctica, the global
atmosphere, and outer space; profound changes in the rules and
actors relating to the use of force, peacekeeping and the
maintenance of international peace and security, international
terrorism, the development of the new concept of international
crimes, international humanitarian law, international criminal
tribunals, and changes in the relationship between international
law and institutions and national laws and legal systems, to name
just a few.
This course is designed to provide students with an
understanding of the nature of international law and of the
processes at work in the transformation that has taken place in how
international law works, drawing on historical and current
"real-world" events and problems. The course will cover the range
of subjects mentioned above, including the following:
- The changing nature of international law; Historical
overview;
- Sources of international law: treaties, customary international
law, general principles of law, equity; new forms of law making
such as "soft law", relationship between international law and
domestic or national law;
- The subjects and principal actors in international law: Nation
States (state formation and dissolution, recognition, state
sovereignty, self-determination, sovereign immunity,
self-determination and political independence, territorial
integrity, succession, jurisdiction, state responsibility);
- International organizations: Formation, composition, status and
powers: the
- United Nations, regional organizations and other
intergovernmental organizations;
- The role of non-state actors, including non-governmental
organizations (NGOs),
- Sub-state units, corporations and individuals, territories and
groups;
- International dispute settlement: negotiation, mediation,
conciliation, good offices; International arbitration; Judicial
settlement: the International Court of Justice, Regional and
Specialized courts; the International Criminal Court;
- The role of individuals in international law: international
human rights law: civil and political rights, and economic, social
and cultural rights; individual responsibility for human rights
abuses, international humanitarian law, crimes against humanity;
(the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials and norms, the Khmer
Rouge atrocities in Cambodia, atrocities in the former Yugoslavia,
the genocide in Rwanda, the situation in the Sudan)
- The use of force in international law, legal norms and
developments: 1) Up to World War I, 2) WWI to WW II, 3) 1945 to the
present. The UN Charter and the role of the Security Council and
other UN organs. UN sanctions. Individual and Collective
Self-Defense, anticipatory, preventive and preemptive self-defense.
The Law of war and occupation and the treatment of civilians and of
prisoners;
- International Peacekeeping: the United Nations, Regional
Organizations. Humanitarian Intervention: Somalia, Kosovo, the
Congo, the Sudan;
- Arms control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. The control
and regulation of Nuclear Weapons, Chemical and Biological weapons,
conventional weapons, Land Mines,
- International terrorism, national and international responses,
and international law.
- The Law of the Sea;
- International Environmental Law;
- International Economic Law and financial institutions.
International trade. Globalization.
Last modified on June
1, 2006
