For a complete list of course offerings in International, Foreign and Comparative Law, including full descriptions and faculty who will be teaching the offerings in 2008-2009, refer to the online Curriculum Guide.
Columbia's curriculum in international, foreign, and comparative subjects presents by far the richest array of such offerings at any law school in the United States. To meet the challengs of an increasingly integrated world, new courses are constantly developed to prepare students for international legal practice and research. Recent additionals include Global Governance and Regulation; WTO Law; and Law and Capitalism. Columbia Law School also offers a first year elective entitled Lawyering across Multiple Legal Orders. This course uses materials students encouter in their first year of law school to demontrate how legal solutions might change once they are governed or affected by regional or foreign law or international legal regimes, such as WTO agreements or NAFTA.
Upperclass students can choose from dozens of offerings, which we have groupled below under the following headings: (1) public international law (and other public law relevant to foreign relations); (2) private international law (transnational practice); and (3) comparative law. These categories are by no means watertight and some courses span more than one of them. Students aiming toward a specialization in international or comparative law are encouraged to plan their program in light of the availability of the Parker School Recognition of Achievement.
1. Public International Law: The body of law known as public international law includes the law made by states to govern relations between states and also the law governing relations between states and international or supranational organizations. It is recommended that the foundation course International Law be taken in the second year for JD students, or the fall semester for LLM students. Other public law courses concern relations between states and individuals, international organizations and the constitutional dimensions fo foreign affairs. These include the Constitution and Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and Immigration Law and Aliens' Rights, Jurisprudence of War and International Criminal Law.
2. Private International Law: Future practitioners of law in a transational context have an ample selection of offerings addressing the planning and execution of transactions in international business, as well as the resolution of disuptes arising out of such transactions. Among the available offerings are Comparative Antitrust Law, International Business Transactions, International Commercial Arbitration, Transnational Litigation and Arbitration, U.S. Taxation of International Transactions, International Securities Law and related advanced seminars.
Several courses stand at the intersection of public and private law, such as those concerning the interstate framework for the conduct of both public and private economic activity. Among these are European Union Law and International Economic Law, including the law of the WTO or NAFTA. Seminars taking up advanced problems in public international law, or at the intersection of public and private international law, include Enforcing International Law, International Environmental Law, International Labor Law, Legal Aspects of China's International Relationships, and Private International Law (transnational practice).
3. Comparative and Foreign Law: The most general introduction to comparative law (apart from the first-year elective, Lawyering Across Multiple Legal Orders) is the Comparative Law course, which introduces students to the major distinct features of the civil law systems in Europe and Latin America. Also available are a wide range of courses in the law of specific countries and/or regions, including (but not limited to) Europe (European Union and Russia/Eastern Europe), China, Japan, and Latin America. Related offerings include American Indian Law and Islamic Law. The curriculum also contains courses offering a comparative view of regular curricular subjects, such as comparative constitutional law, comparative intellectual property law and comparative corporate governance. Finally, students may explore inter-disciplinary approaches to the study of comparative legal systems, such as Anthropology of Law, of comparative institutional analysis as employed in Law and Capitalism and Globalization in Comparative Perspective -- Foreign Investment in Emerging Economies.
Students desiring to focus their program and eventual practice on a particular country or region are urged to acquire facility in the relevant language(s) (including some specifically tailored to law students, such as Spanish for lawyers) and to take advantage of the numerous courses offered at the University to study the history, culture, politics and economics of the region in question. Other student opportunities in international and comparative law include moot court competitions on different topics and in different places (i.e., Vienna on the U.N. Sales Convention; San Jose, Costa Rica, on the American Human Rights Convention); term time externships (i.e., at the U.N.); summer internships in human rights; human rights clinics; independent study under the supervision fo faculty specializing in international and comparative law; a variety of student-run journals in international, transhational and comparative law; and clerkships post-graduation at major international arbitration tribunals and international organizations.
