Legal Studies

This course introduces the basic structure of the American legal system and various topics of substantive law. 

This course provides an overview of the origins and the evolution of the European Union’s legal system, as well as the main features of its governance framework. It also provides an opportunity to debate relevant questions and news items as they unfold during the course. Considering the strong influence European norms have on national legal systems today, the knowledge acquired in this course is useful both to more advanced study in European Union law and to better understand how national and European norms are defined and how they should be applied. The course provides the key to understanding current debates related to democracy, economic integration, and the respect of the rule of law within the European Union.

This course examines in detail the basic principles of international taxation. It tries to identify the core issues in developing international tax rules, and study the different approaches countries have taken in dealing with these issues. Topics covered include basic theory of international taxation, jurisdiction for taxation, methods of international double tax relief, basic operation of double tax treaties, and international issues in tax administration. 

This course examines the sociological approaches to the systematic analysis of law, its operation, and its significance in society. It studies law as a major social phenomenon related to other aspects of society and explores its pervasive influence on human behavior and society. Topics include the sociology of law; the justification of law; major foundational works on law and society; the social basis of law, including folkways and mores, law and culture, legal pluralism, living law and book law, traditional or customary law and modern law, approaches to the study of law, and legal positivism; the consensus perspective or law as an integrative mechanism; the conflict perspective or law, power, and ideological control; law as an instrument of social change; the acceptance and legitimacy of law; the professional guardians of law; judges, courts, and disputes; and the enforcement and invocation of law.

This course provides an overview of the history of law in Europe. The course sketches the history of a common civilization, to which people contributed coming from different and faraway lands, cities, kingdoms, and towns. A special focus is on the sources of law: legislation, legal doctrine, and legal practice. The relevance of each of these sources varied over time. In order to shed light on the common features throughout the history of Europe, the course focuses on a selection of the institutions of private and public law which are most representative of each epoch and each country. A special emphasis is on the correlation between the laws and the role played by professional jurists. All topics in the course are dealt with particular attention to the exchange of normative bodies, legislations, doctrines, judicial decisions, and customs within Europe, including English Common Law. Overall, the course introduces students to the complexities of European legal history through in-depth analysis of the sources of the law, from the middle ages to the present time. The course recommends students have background knowledge with the fundamentals of Private Law and Public Law.

This course offers an overview of how American legal institutions defined and enforced public rules based on race and racial categories. It begins with a discussion of the American constitution, then proceeds to the law of slavery, Native American removal, restrictions against Chinese and Asian immigrants, and race-based segregation. The course delves into the American Civil Rights Movement, followed by studies of desegregation and notions of “colorblindness.”   

This course examines how international law was an instrument used by the European colonial enterprise under the name "International Law of Civilized Nations." It then considers how it can be used today to repair the crimes linked to past colonizations.