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International Law and Relations (LAWS70455)
Graduate coursework level 7Points: 12.5On Campus (Parkville)
About this subject
Contact information
August
Lecturers
Professor Gerry Simpson, Coordinator
Mr Richard Rowe
Email: law-masters@unimelb.edu.au
Phone: +61 3 8344 6190
Website: law.unimelb.edu.au
Overview
| Availability(Quotas apply) | August |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
This subject will place international law in the context of the practice of international relations and, in particular, international diplomacy. The subject will introduce students to leading accounts of international law’s role in global political life while showing, too, how the international legal order intersects with and constitutes the practice of international diplomacy. It will be taught by Gerry Simpson, Chair of International Law at the London School of Economics, and Richard Rowe, a former senior official in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and a person with a life-time of extraordinary experience in the operation of international legal diplomacy.
Principal topics include:
- Treaty design, negotiation and implementation
- Use of international courts and organisations
- Politics and international law
- The history of international law in diplomatic practice
- Techniques of diplomacy and law
- Problems of diplomacy and law.
Intended learning outcomes
A student who has successfully completed this subject will:
- Understand how international law operates in the shadow of global political life and in the framework of international diplomatic practice
- Be conversant in theories of compliance and accounts of legal politics
- Acquire skills in the techniques of international diplomacy
- Possess an advanced, detailed, and integrated understanding of the legal structures and processes of international diplomatic life
- Be able to situate the Council in a history of Great Power management
- Have the cognitive and technical skills to generate critical and creative ideas relating to the workings of the diplomatic order and to critically evaluate, with creativity and autonomy, existing legal theories about its operation
- Have the cognitive and technical skills to independently examine, research and analyse existing and emerging legal issues relating to diplomatic practice
- Have the communication skills to clearly articulate and convey complex information about the relationship between international law and international relations to relevant specialist and non-specialist audiences
- Be able to demonstrate autonomy, expert judgment and responsibility as a practitioner and student in the field of international law generally and in relation to diplomatic practice more particularly.
Last updated: 3 November 2022