Legal Studies

This multidisciplinary course considers equality, discrimination, affirmative action, and multiculturalism within the specific context of the U.S. experience. This experience is characterized by three structural features that Alexis de Tocqueville famously identified: the passion for equality, the salience of racial divisions, and the judicialization of politics. Elaborating upon those intuitions, the course relies extensively on history (that of ethno-racial and religious minorities since the early nineteenth century), law (through a thorough analysis of some of the key Supreme Court decisions in this area), political science (through the study of the emergence, development, and partial decline of race-conscious policies such as affirmative action and the redistricting designed to increase the number of Black and Hispanic elected representatives), and political philosophy (by discussing theories of social justice and equality, notably those of John Rawls, Ronald Dworkin, and Michael Walzer).

This course examines the various human rights responses under international law to mass atrocities committed in communities around the world (a field known as transitional justice); the development of transitional justice and how it operates within the broader peace-building field; the historical development of transitional justice, the various justice processes that may be employed, and how they operate in theory as well as practice; societies in transition in contemporary settings and the applicable laws and legal processes.

The course provides a general introduction to the study of law, starting with the basic concepts of jurisprudence. The expected goal is that students become acquainted with the fundamentals of private law both at the domestic and the international level. Particularly, the course deals with some of the essential rules applicable to economic activities and focus on the interaction between party autonomy and market regulation in business transactions. The expected goal is that students learn how to tackle and discuss legal problems and gain a good command of the terminology of private law. The course adopts an international perspective and highlights the main differences between civil law and common law jurisdictions in the context of the Western legal tradition. The aim is to provide guidance on issues of international relationships in which the applicable law can crucially influence the economic outcome of a transaction. In this regard, European private law is also taken into consideration, with a specific focus on the rules aiming to protect consumers vis-à-vis professionals. In the final part of the course, small groups of attending students are given an assignment. The expected goal is to train students in addressing legal issues by drawing up a memorandum and/or a presentation. Written midterm, final exam, group project.

This course provides theoretical and practical knowledge in mediation, negotiation, and other alternative dispute resolution techniques typically used by legal practitioners in the field of conflict management. Topics covered include: types of conflicts and conflict management styles; different dispute resolution methods; negotiation; mediation; mediation in civil law; mediation in other fields. The course is divided into lectures and practical sessions.

This course provides a study of the origins, development, and main characteristics of environmental law, its ability to effectively protect the environment taking into account the real degree of enforcement. Topics include: development and nature of environmental law; international protection of the environment; the European Law and environmental law; constitutional and statutory configuration of environmental law; means of protection; instruments and techniques; environmental protection sectors.

This course focuses on cultivating analytical insight on legal disputes as a social phenomena. Systemization of the legal theories with the assistance of social science, and the analysis of social phenomena with the established legal theories are the two major cores of this course.