Legal Studies

This course provides an introduction to law from an abstract and philosophical framework. Topics include: the concept of law; law as a social and cultural phenomenon and form of social organization; law and other normative systems; law and force; legal norms; legal system; the creation of law; interpretation and application of law.

This course discusses human rights from an historical perspective as well as present day in Chile. It explores the search for truth, justice, memory, reparation, and guarantees of non-repetition after the restoration of democracy. The course reflects on the causes and social consequences of political violence, both during the dictatorship and in democracy, the difficulties in moving towards a more egalitarian and cohesive society, the challenges of the rule of law and democracy, and the main struggles for social justice in Chile today.

From interpersonal violence to political violence, from sex crimes to organized crime, from the family sphere to the public arena, from “news stories” to historical trials, criminal justice reveals our societies, their obsessions, the norms and values that underpin them and evolve over time. Society protects itself by criminalizing deviance and transgression, and in the courtroom, the repulsive figures of this deviance are forged and assigned to the dock. In contemporary France, the legitimacy and symbolic force of the sanction, in terms of the law but also under the weight of representations, social expectations and media focus, are the subject of constant questioning, as the emergence of the victim figure tends to redefine the balance of penal interactions.

This course provides skills to find, use, and read legal resources (e.g., statutes, cases, and so on) associated with English law. The lectures mainly deal with the law and legal system of England (e.g., what are main legal sources in English law, how English courts are organized, what are main features of the English legal profession, what is the meaning of common law or case law and how it works, and how common lawyers interpret statutes, etc.). The course also provides an understanding of the differences between civil and common law traditions.