AUGUST - NOVEMBER 2004
Syllabus
TEACHING
FACULTY
Prof. David Linnan (University of South Carolina)
Prof. Hikmahanto Juwana
(University of Indonesia)
Prof. Harkristuti Harkrisnowo
(University of Indonesia)
COVERAGE
Public international law is the traditional law applicable between states
and multilateral organizations (e.g., the United Nations), now supplemented
by human rights law representing the post-World War II recognition of individuals'
rights within the international law system. This is an introductory course, and public
international law is a self-contained system with a different basis than domestic
law which you normally study. You will notice that the course materials webpage
contains assignments for 19 individual units. We expect to complete approximately 15 units
by early November, then to let the class chose 1-2 of the final 4 units to cover
in the balance of the course.
MEETING
TIMES & PLACES
The class meets normally Tuesdays
and Thursdays 11:30-13:00 in Room 338. We also have scheduled two class meetings to be shared
via videoconferencing with faculty and students from the University of Indonesia
(with whom we have been working together on videoconferenced instruction since
2000). When the time comes, because
of time differences, we shall cancel regular class and agree on alternate times
for those two videoconferenced sessions (meeting in the Law Library videoconferencing
room on those days).
COURSE MATERIALS AND APPROACH
The basic text is Rebecca Wallace, International
Law (4th ed, Thomson Sweet & Maxwell, 2002). Otherwise, instructional materials will be
posted on the course website accessed via the Law & Finance Institutional
Partnership or LFIP website (http://www.lfip.org/laws783fall04/index.htm). The course will be taught by the problem
method, under which you are required to read Wallace as student commentary plus
other documents posted as part of course materials, view some streaming video
lectures in advance, and then prepare problems posted on the
course website for class discussion.
We have a course LISTSERV (linnanil@listserv.sc.edu)
to keep in touch generally. You must
join the listserv to fully participate in this class, since the teaching faculty
will use it like a bulletin board for announcements about reading assignments,
etc. while students and faculty should use it to ask questions and carry on
discussions outside our videoconferenced classes. For those of you unfamiliar with the LISTSERV concept, a LISTSERV
is simply a system in which e-mail communications are sent to a single address
and then distributed to all LISTSERV subscribers. Please consult the LISTSERV information page at http://www.sc.edu/ars/listserv.html
for general directions, and click on the course webpage class administration link
for directions about how to subscribe.
You are encouraged
generally to read the newspapers/websites with an eye toward questions of international
law and are invited to bring them up in class for discussion.
By course's end, you should understand the basic issues and legal framework
applicable in the broad public international law area.
COURSE CONCEPT
The bulk of this
course is devoted to a general introduction to public international law.
Public international law is something which all countries share, but
no single country controls. Is it law, and how is the border to be drawn
between politics versus law? It is sometimes
hard for students to understand how the law is formed and frames state actions.
International judicial decisions are
still the exception rather than the rule, and different groups of states have
different views of what the law is, or should be. Add to that disagreements about the role of
multilateral institutions versus states, and what do you have (think Iraq)?
It is clear that there are differences of opinion concerning international law
in the post-9/11 world, and particularly between the US and the Islamic world.
Indonesia is
both the world's largest Islamic country by population, and a major developing
country comparable in size and ethnic diversity to the US. Our two sessions with the Indonesians will
include a human rights unit taught by Prof. Harkrisnowo, a noted scholar of
women's and human rights, plus a session on use of force law with Prof. Juwana
and his public international law students participating this year in the Jessup
International Moot Court Competition (because we expect this year's problem
to include the use of armed force, think Iraq and Afghanistan). We expect vigorous but principled disagreement
among students on certain areas of the law. Your guiding principle in discussions should
be that disagreements should be about principles rather than personal in nature,
but we do want students to speak candidly with each other. You can see Prof. Harkrisnowo already by accessing
the streaming video entitled A
Conversation about Indonesians' Views of Human Rights (part of your unit
13 assignment).
We want different
groups of students to prepare various class problems as presentations to their
colleagues, including hand-outs and/or powerpoints. The theory is that you ultimately learn the
most working with each other solving problems.
We want you to be able to compare and critique your own and your colleagues'
work in part to see how professionals judge these matters.
ACCESSMENT
The primary contributor to your grade will be performance
on the final examination. In this course
you have the option individually to take one of two kinds of examination.
The first kind of examination will be a take-home covering several fact
patterns or documents passed out during the last few weeks of class (for your
prior consideration in working them up in study groups, if you so desire, with
the specific questions covering those fact patterns only to be available when
you check out the actual examination). You
will find examples of this kind of examination in the on-line past international
law examination materials, and many of the class discussion problems come from
former examinations. The second variety
of final examination will be a closed book examination on hypotheticals you
see only when you take the exam as scheduled during the regular examination
week period. The final examination will
be graded anonymously in either case. Beyond
that, your grade will be determined by project work in groups of 3-5, working
up 3-4 presentations of individual problems for class (including powerpoint
presentation and fielding questions). Your group projects will incorporate an element of self-grading
business-school style, to make sure that all group members invest the required
effort in their work. However, the group
self-grading element will not change your grade more than by ½ grade (for example,
from B+ to A).
PREPARING FOR
CLASS
Please note also that to prepare each class you need
to read the printed sources (Wallace plus other materials assigned), watch the
related streaming video material in advance, then work the assigned problems.
Look closely at the 15 units and you will see that the first 3-5 units
typically have one problem for each unit, but thereafter the units typically
have 2-3 problems per unit. You should always read all problems and think
about them. That having been said, however,
everyone in the class will always have one common problem to prepare for each
unit. We shall assign the "excess"
problems starting a few weeks into the course as group work to be presented
in class. For problems assigned as group
work, you must do formal presentations including hand-outs and/or powerpoints
setting forth your analysis and conclusions. You do not need to prepare such formal materials
for the common problems that everyone prepares for a class.