3 ECTS
The aim of the course is to keep the students up to date as concerns recent debate and developments in international law. The course through several examples of current international events will focus on treaty law, including the general rule of interpretation of treaties, the formation of rules in international law as well as their enforcement. More specifically the following fields will be dealt with: subjects of international law, UN and international courts, jurisdiction, including territorial waters and State immunity, State responsibility, including countermeasures. The students will have to form a better idea on the nature of international law as a coherent legal system. For this reason, the criticism addressed towards international law will be part of the discussion of the selected topics. This criticism will be addressed through an in-depth and up to date understanding of sources of international law, their legitimacy and normativity. It will also be tackled through a more in-depth learning of how States interact in bilateral and multilateral fora. This discussion will be placed in a broader reflection with regards to the idea of the emerging global law and the mistake of distinctions between national and international as well as public and private.
Teacher: Arina Melse
3 ECTS
The course addresses the key principles of European constitutional law, mainly focusing on the legal-institutional system of the European Union (EU), but also including the Council of Europe (CoE). The course is ideally divided in three parts.
The first part of the course focuses on the most topical principles of the European legal order (e.g. democracy, rule of law, loyal cooperation, protection of fundamental rights, etc.). These are analysed in light of the origin and evolution of the European integration process, and in consideration of the development and consolidation of the founding values, principles and objectives of the EU. Peculiar attention will be devoted to the EU citizenship, analysing its evolution, its main features and the rights stemming therefrom. In this framework, a special focus will be put on the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), highlighting its crucial role in shaping the constitutional identity of the Union.
The second part aims at clarifying the main legal-institutional elements of the EU constitutional legal order. Among others, it analyses: the allocation of competences between the EU and the Member States (vertical division of powers); the principal institutions of the Union, their role and functioning, as well as their interrelationship (horizontal division of powers); the EU legal sources, their hierarchical and functional systematisation, as well as their overarching governing principles (e.g. direct effect and primacy of EU law); the judicial system of the EU.
The third part of the course will be interactive. Theoretical issues will be confronted with practical cases (in particular, the case-law of the CJEU) in order to allow the students to understand and verify how EU constitutional law and principles are actually implemented by major EU actors. The EU constitutional legal order will be also addressed and discussed in the light of recent and current crises (e.g. migration, terrorism, Covid-19) so as to assess how contemporary challenges may have an impact on the European constitutional identity and some of its founding values, such as the rule of law and the protection of fundamental rights.
Teacher: Filip Cyunczyk
3 ECTS
Microeconomics is the economics of individual agents: People (consumers), firms (producers) and individual goods and services, whereas macroeconomics deals with the whole economy – all consumers, all firms, all goods and services. Microeconomics introduces the concepts of demand, supply and equilibrium while macroeconomics adds fiscal and monetary policy as well as the labour market and international linkages. For both, the concept of equilibrium (and disequilibrium) is of importance as is the role of the government in interfering in/trying to adjust the economy.
Teacher: Morten Hansen
3 ECTS
With the advent of digitalization and emerging technologies, more information has the capacity to stray beyond the sphere of control of its owners than ever before. The development has been closely followed by concerns over the privacy and data protection of information owners. This course comparatively and critically examines the legal aspects of privacy and data protection through the prisms of regulation, practice and academic scholarship.
Data protection and privacy stems from fundamental values enshrined in several international instruments, such as the European Convention on Human Rights or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These renditions have taken on a new facet of interpretation in the context of data-focused economies. The gamut of economic and social benefits must be balanced with short and long-term risks to individuals and organizations alike. In turn, the European Union states have agreed on several major regional norms, such as Directives 2002/58/EC and 2006/24/EC, as well as the General Data Protection Regulation coming into force May 2018 and Privacy Shield regulations on data transfers between the European Union and United States.
However, the issue of data protection and privacy becomes more complicated as it reaches the subsidiarity levels of structures closest to enforcing the norms. The borderless nature of the data domain denotes potentially transnational consequences for any decisions taken by state regulators. Together with various differences in interpretation and capacity, the current lack of privacy and data protection harmonisation among various states is a point of contention.
Concurrently, states are seeking the correct way to balance the interests of private parties, in spite of disparity in bargaining power. Within the European Union, all parties involved must comply with accountability principles and retain Data Protection Impact Assessments to various degrees before and after the creation of contractual relations. The same parties also hold responsibility for data breach notifications. Issues further delve into data interaction with the general public and individuals, via targeted advertising from private parties, or surveillance from the state.
This course delves into the aforementioned themes by tracing their development from inception to contemporaneity in doctrine and practice, critically appraising current paradigms in light of new technological praxis and discoveries.
3 ECTS
This course introduces students to new scholarship in international adjudication which is broader than the focus on a few well-known permanent courts. It maps many if not all of the international adjudicative bodies that exist (or have existed) and groups them according to their respective missions or mandates. It also explores the different dispute resolution systems that rely on adjudication, both the familiar “open” systems and the so-called “closed” ones.
Teaching is based on (the modern American law school version of) the “Socratic method”, blurring the distinction between lecture and seminar. The course is, from beginning to end, interactive and classes require preparation.
Teacher: Tjaco Theo van den Hout
3 ECTS
Finance course represents the combination of two sets of knowledge: reading financial statements and decision making in a company. While holding its high ambitions to cover those broad areas during one course, Finance keeps its strong focus on the management perspective of the user of the information while keeping the high pace and intensity of the lectures.
The course starts with the basics of the conceptual framework of accounting and the preparation of financial statements: a balance sheet and an income statement. The course further develops the aspect of the analysis of the financial statements by adding the third financial statement- the cash flow statement as well as ratio analysis. The second part of the course shifts the focus on decisions the company is making on its financing as well as its new projects
Teacher: Nataļja Točelovska
3 ECTS
The term regulation has gained prominence in recent years in many different (academic) fields, including law, economics and finance, political science and policy making, environmental science, etc.. In this course we will look at the ways in which a wide variations of so-called ‘regulation’ are used to steer, guide, limit or promote specific behaviours by governments, institutions, businesses, sectors, and individuals across digital environments. We will discuss the strategies of regulation, the reasons why specific forms of regulation are chosen, the specific societal, economic, environmental, legal, political or public policy reasons, and what rationales underlie different forms of regulation and their effectiveness. Students will come to understand different regulatory strategies lawmakers and policymakers can choose from when tackling regulatory challenges. Students should gain an understanding of the pros and cons of different types of regulation, and will learn to make an informed choice for, and to provide proper argumentative underpinnings for, specific forms of regulation in specific cases.
After an introduction we will focus explicitly on regulation and digital technologies. After briefly discussing the ways in which, and the reasons why digital technologies are regulated, we will turn to the main topic of this course: the use of law and technology to steer, guide, and regulate individuals’ behaviour. This has come to be known as ‘techno-nudging’ or ‘techno-regulation’. Techno-nudging can take several forms, ranging from nudging and persuading users to follow a certain course of action. Hard-coding normative or legal codes into technologies to make certain behaviours impossible and stimulate others. The theory is that by hard-coding rules into digital technologies and networked environments, users will automatically comply rather than being asked to make a choice on whether to follow these rules. Since regulation by technology is cost-effective, fool proof, and an efficient way of ensuring regulatees’ compliance with rules or norms, it is not surprising that this approach has spread rapidly. For policy makers, regulators, and technology developers using nudging is considered a valuable solution in ensuring compliance with a wide variety of norms and rules. Sometimes it is used to enforce legal rules, but often times there is an economic or practical drive behind the choice for this form of regulation. The lecture then moves to specific techniques of regulation before moving towards two different case studies (platform regulation and fake news/disinformation) that puts the lessons of the first nine weeks to practical use.
3 ECTS
This course covers the main developments and challenges in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice of the European Union (AFSJ). It discusses the origins of the AFSJ, reasons why and how AFSJ evolved and where it is heading. It addresses the main political cornerstones of AFSJ, constitutional foundations, and current challenges in ensuring mobility and security in the EU and cooperation in justice and home affairs. It will also give an insight in the AFSJ policy actors, such as the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, EUROJUST, EUROPOL, OLAF, and other EU agencies. It covers the Justice and Home Affairs policy making and cooperation mechanism, such as the cooperation of judiciary, police, and administration. The course will focus on the main sectors in AFSJ, such as EU citizenship (EU Charter, free movement policy), asylum, immigration, internal security, EU criminal law, internal/external border checks and control, visa policy, European arrest warrant, fight against international organized crime, cooperation in civil matters and data protection. It will also cover the external dimension of AFSJ, and compliance procedure to ensure implementation of AFSJ legislation.
Teacher: Jūlija Jerņeva
