Course Catalogue

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The overarching aim of the course is to illustrate and reaffirm the practical relevance of the rule of law in the contemporary, increasingly destabilised security environment. The first part of the course will comprise two foundational lectures providing an overview of the most important rules and principles of human rights and humanitarian law and introducing students to what the clinical nature of the course - and the resulting exercise - entails. The second part of the course will allow students to directly examine selected issues taken from present-day reality, to prepare analyses of these individually and collectively, and to present results in class.

The course will be taught through a mix of plenary seminary and small group sessions.

The course is open to all EMJMD ILGSPD students, subject to the requirements of the programme. If spaces remain available (the course is capped at 25 students), the course may be opened up to all UoG LLM students, subject to the requirements of the programme in each instance.

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2,000-word research report section: 60%

Overall quality and coherence of complete group research report: 20%

Individual in-class presentation of research report section: 20%

Summative assessments include a combination of individual and collective work outputs, to allow comprehensive assessment of all intended learning outcomes. Students will be assigned to small groups and each group will have to prepare a research report on a real-life legal issue.

■ Each student will have to author a 2000-word section of the report (60% weighting), analysing a particular aspect of the legal issue.

■ The sections, together with an overall introduction (500 words), conclusion (500 words), and executive summary (1,000 words) will form the group's report, which will be assessed on its overall quality and coherence (20% weighting). The group report grade will be determined in line with the process described below (see Section 40).

■ The group will have to present the findings of the report, with each member assessed individually on presenting the section they authored (20% weighting).

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

- Written exam: Reassessment possible.

- Class presentation: No reassessment possible (equal and fair evaluation depends on availability of class setting).

- Complete research report: No reassessment possible (equal and fair evaluation depends on individual participation within collective context).

This course aims to acquaint students with the challenges of working with human rights law and humanitarian law in operational practice. The focus will be on confronting students with the difficulties of operationalising human rights and humanitarian law in the reality of complex political and security environments through supervised work on selected cases taken from contemporary practice.

The overarching aim of the course is to illustrate and reaffirm the practical relevance of the rule of law in the contemporary, increasingly destabilised security environment.

By the end of the course students should:

1. Demonstrate a consolidated understanding of the most important rules and principles of human rights and humanitarian law governing the use of force in situations of crisis, violence and armed conflict.

2. Understand the challenges arising when operationalising human rights and humanitarian law in the reality of complex political and security environments.

3. Apply key rules and principles of human rights and humanitarian law to concrete cases involving the use of force in present-day reality with a view to achieving a satisfactory legal and policy response. 

4. Work as members of a team to design, manage, and deliver clear written legal research outputs, and present these orally.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.