This module provides an overview of the main contemporary issues in international development law and human rights. It provides an introduction to topics that all students are expected to have an understanding of and thus provides the background for all modules and the dissertation. Students who read and understand the module materials are more likely to achieve higher grades. Group work is an important part of the module as experience shows that participatory study is a successful pedagogical method.
Module Aims
- To provide students with knowledge and understanding of and the inter-relationships between the main legal theories relating to international development, gender, governance, globalization and human rights
- To provide students with a range of practical legal and academic skills used by lawyers and development practitioners.
- To facilitate the development of an understanding of the relationship between theory and practice.
- To develop a critical ability to read theoretical materials, distil and synthesize such materials, and incorporate insights into written legal and academic documents.
- To develop oral and advocacy skills appropriate to legal and developmental practice.
Central to the approach of the course will be a perspective which views law as contested, both as a matter of ‘theory’ and as a matter of social struggle, as world-orders are imagined and effected. During the course, you will be familiarised with different and differing theories of ‘global law’ and be enabled to critically evaluate them by reference to examined realities of the life-worlds of law.
You will be encouraged to adopt socially grounded analytical perspectives and to present analyses of global law through examinations of specific regimes of governance. The course, therefore, seeks to enable you to acquire analytical and advocacy skills necessary to engage with law in a globalising world, informed by a concern for social justice and human development.
Module Aims
The Legal Research and Writing Skills module is a
core component of the taught LLM programme designed to prepare students
for the researching and writing academically. Students
develop the knowledge, skills and confidence required to develop
critical reading, writing and research skills in preparation for
undertaking independent research and writing academic work.
The aim of the module is to provide students with the knowledge, skills and confidence required to develop critical reading, writing and research skills in preparation for undertaking independent research and writing up academic work.