3 ECTS
The course provides an overview of international and European human rights regimes, including the main standards and protection mechanisms. The course is structured in two parts. The first part introduces UN human rights system and examines the two Covenants and mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights. It discusses in detail selected economic, social and cultural rights, such as the right to health, as well as civil and political rights, such as freedom of expression. It then outlines the regional human rights systems, with a particular focus on the European system. Lastly, it introduces philosophical underpinnings of human rights and addresses some contemporary challenges to human rights.
The second part of the course focuses on the examination of the substantive human rights law, offering a comparative perspective involving a number of human rights protection instruments, with a special focus on the ICCPR and ECHR. It discusses the understanding of the obligation to protect human rights, including jurisdictional aspects and the application of human rights in times of emergency. Further, it considers such rights as the right to life, prohibition of inhumane or degrading treatment, or torture, the right to liberty and security, the right to fair trial as well as the right to private life, especially taking into account the contemporary challenges associated with armed conflicts and security threats. It also discusses the challenges regarding the compliance with the decisions of the human right judicial bodies and the redress to the victims of human rights violations.
Teacher: Daina Celma
Teacher: George Ulrich
3 ECTS
The course will offer a perspective of an insider and a practitioner on how individuals defend their rights in the European Court of Human Rights, the most common difficulties for representatives in bringing claims to the Court and the challenges faced by the Court today in Europe. The course will provide several practical ideas on how the Court works. The European Court of Human Rights is considered the most effective mechanism for the protection of human rights. The course will put an emphasis on explaining in detail the procedure before the Court. Considerable body of case-law elaborates important issues concerning admissibility of claims. During the course, participants will also study the methodology of the Court in adjudicating cases, i.e., the rules of interpretation and the relevant principles of case-law. Participants have to understand how the Court might go forward in adjudicating their case.
3 ECTS
This course focuses on the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), which by its development throughout the treaties enhanced the EU’s global actorness. The CFSP is often approached as one of the most contested policy fields: some analysts speak about ‘diplomacy without state’, others argue that the Common Foreign and Security Policy is neither common, nor can it be called a foreign policy’. In the field, however, the implementation of the CFSP has resulted in a number of concrete missions conducted in diverse locations on the world map. These military and civilian missions, which fall under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) do not always receive extensive media attention, but they largely contribute to the EU’s status of International Actor.
Since 2016, the Common Foreign and Security Policy has received a new incentive with the new Global Security Strategy of the EU (EUGS). The permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), foreseen in the Lisbon treaty, was activated and 25 countries decided to enter in a structured and binding cooperation framework to increase and rationalize their defence spendings.
In order to understand the dynamics of the CFSP, this course addresses three main aspects of the Common Foreign and Security Policy – (1) actors, (2) policy instruments and (3) actions.
Teacher: Kurt Engelen
Teacher: Rodolphe van Hövell
3 ECTS
The aim of the course is to initiate students to the EU political system by introducing its institutions, governance, legislative processes as well as formal and informal decision-making procedures. The Lisbon Treaty offers a consolidated legal basis for a more effective decision-making. It has affected almost all policy fields in terms of competence distribution, power of the European Parliament and role of the European Commission. Member states still play a significant role in the legislative process that will be analysed step by step in the lectures and seminars. In order to distinguish differences of institutional power across different policy fields, students will prepare the course papers, reflecting the inter-institutional balance in different policy fields.
Member States are represented in the EU by national delegations that negotiate on behalf of their governments. Similarly, EU institutions empower groups of individuals to negotiate on their behalf. Accordingly, understanding bargaining situations is essential for acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the EU’s modus operandi. This course therefore includes a practical exercise of negotiations in the EU Council, i.e. negotiation simulation. The negotiation simulation is embedded in a real-life negotiation scenario on a Council document. It will allow students to better understand the functioning of the EU institutions.
Finally, the course addresses the issues of deepening of the EU through looking at different integration theories. In the proactive exchange with the audience the professors will introduce various scenarios for future development of the EU. Brexit issues will be analysed as a part of this discussion.
Teacher: Ilze Rūse
3 ECTS
This course focuses on the analysis of commercial transactions, mainly contracts, from an international and comparative law perspective (see below Course Plan-Main Subjects). It is not based on the legal rules applicable to commercial contracts in one specific jurisdiction (domestic law), as this is more appropriate of nationally–oriented LLM studies, but on the principle that learning the law is not just about learning legal rules but also, and more importantly, about learning to think as a lawyer. Consequently, this is a course with a strong methodological component where students, in addition to having the chance to work with legal rules (mostly at a supranational level: EU, Int’l Conventions), will be given ample opportunities to learn about the legal problem-solving method at an international level. From this perspective, this course is intensively more practical than theoretical as students will have to read, analyse and discuss, first individually and later in the classroom, a number of problems and court cases representative of conflictive situations arising in the field of international commercial transactions (see below Course Plan-Sessions). Students will be provided with materials uploaded in the course intranet (more details on Course Plan-Sessions below) and will also receive recommendations on suggested readings and supplementary materials (see below Course Plan-Sessions and Course Literature)
Teacher: Carlos Llorente
3 ECTS
The course consists of four related parts. The first part introduces students to the basic notions of money, credit, interest rates, and financial markets. The second part focuses on banks, banking risks and regulation, central banking and financial system, in connection with money supply and demand. The third part addresses the institutional structure, goals, strategy and operating procedures of the European Central Bank. The fourth part is devoted to discussing the monetary policy transmission mechanism in the context of an open economy.
Teacher: Paolo Paesani
3 ECTS
This course introduces students to contracting in the information technology field. We will adopt a practical approach to exploring the fundamentals of how contracts are concluded; issues in cross-border contracting; main types of ICT transactions (distribution, licensing and services agreements); smart contracts and the Blockchain; intellectual property in ICT contracting, non-disclosure and confidentiality clauses, inkless contracts, and contract enforcement.
Teacher: Agnese Gerharde
Teacher: Christopher Goddard
Teacher: Ingrīda Kariņa-Bērziņa
3 ECTS
This case-based course comparatively and critically examines intellectual property and its interoperability with technological advances from the perspectives of regulation, practice and academic scholarship.
