Legal Studies

Law is often imagined as a mass of written documents containing intricate and arcane language, which is usually manipulated by lawyers and judges. This course expands this imagery by exploring the impact of legal practice, defined as a set of techniques deployed by legal professionals, in relation to our daily life. The course first surveys the historical underpinnings of legal practice, devoting special attention to the study of its Roman and Medieval manifestations. Moreover, it reflects upon the impact of legal professionals and legal techniques in the organization of geographical spaces, group membership, behavior control, and economic production. The course also discusses the tensions between legal pluralism and the centralization of legal authority promoted by the nation-State, as well as introduces the use of legal technique as tools for resistance and change.

In this introductory course, students study the mechanisms of the UK constitution and experience of understanding and applying legal texts, including landmark cases and statutes. They learn about the institutions of legislating and decision-making in the UK, the rule of law, and the judicial protection of the rule of law, alongside a specialist topic reflecting topical current research experience from UCL’s Faculty of Laws, such as environmental law, law and democracy, or social welfare law. This course provides a taster of legal education at university level, which at UCL Laws focuses on how world-leading research and a deeply inclusive law school can support a strong social mission and a set of values centered around the concept of justice: particularly the rule of law, the protection of human rights, and constitutional democracy.

The migration crisis, the independence of the judiciary, the right to integrity, attacks on secularism, the debate on the end of life, restrictions on the right to demonstrate: these are just some of the current debates that call freedoms into question. Because freedoms are always on the move, always progressing, always under threat, this course, through the study of major current debates, examines the state of freedoms in France today, their limits, the conditions under which they are exercised, and the ways in which they are protected. By focusing on the study of fundamental freedoms and their protection mechanisms, this course masters the main legal concepts, develops legal reasoning and a good knowledge of French and European jurisdictional architecture.