Legal Methods II: International Problem Solving

Course Description. International law is a kind of law that applies beyond the jurisdiction of any state. Governments, civil society groups, private entities, and other actors routinely use it to address problems that, in their view, cannot or should not be addressed by one state alone. This intensive course will introduce students to international law through a
problem-oriented approach. Each class session will focus on a different case study (the problem) to explore the legal issues that arise in their social and
political contexts, as decisionmakers actually confront them. This problemoriented approach has three main objectives for the students:
• To examine the issues at stake in some of the world’s most pressing
problems and how global actors have used international law to address
them.
• To understand the basic architecture of the international legal process.
Each case study has been selected to highlight a different aspect of the
legal process: the key participants and the terms on which they engage
with the law, the arenas in which they apply it, the techniques they use
to shape it, and the outcomes and distributional effects that they produce through it.
• To think strategically about the contexts in which the law operates and
the opportunities for advancing one’s interests through it. This kind of
lawyering requires one to assess not only the law as it is but also the
various levers for shaping the law going forward.
The course will consist of a combination of classroom lectures, interactive
exercises, and small-group work. Students will be expected to spend at least
two hours each day reading and preparing for class, to attend and participate
in all of the classroom sessions, and to work independently in their assigned
small groups each afternoon. The course will be graded pass-fail, with credit
awarded on the basis of the final writing projects, class participation, and
attendance.

The legal methods course will be graded pass-fail, with credit awarded on the basis of the final (group) writing projects, class participation, and attendance.