From September 2021 two new courses will be added to the BCL/MJur options list. Philosophy, Law, and Politics will be led by Professor Ruth Chang, Chair and Professor of Jurisprudence. The second, International Human Rights Law, will be delivered by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights with Professors Kate O’Regan, Martin Scheinin and Associate Professor Shreya Atrey leading it.
Philosophy, Law, and Politics is an interdisciplinary course that draws on some of the best work from all three named disciplines and brings their analyses to bear on important foundational and practical problems. It is intended as a course ideally for those with some philosophy background and with interests in pursuing careers in academic law and philosophy. Some foundational questions that may be explored include but are not limited to: What are reasons and where do they come from? What is it to be rational and to make rational choices? What are hard choices and how should we understand value conflict in general? What are normative powers? Is there a feminist jurisprudence? How is consent important to understanding freedom and legal justification? What are the limits of democracy? Some applied questions that may be explored include but are not limited to: How should a judge or legislator decide among incommensurable values? How should a government regulate, if at all, speech and pornography? How should we understand consent in the context of sexual crimes? Topics covered from year to year may vary. Over the course of the year, students will be exposed to high level work within each of the disciplines of philosophy, law and politics. The aim of the course is to equip students with the ability to subject complex issues to rigorous theoretical scrutiny from a variety of perspectives.
Associated with the course is the Philosophy, Law, & Politics Colloquium, which features distinguished visiting speakers from around the world who present a work-in-progress. A seminar for students enrolled in the course will be held in advance of each colloquium session to discuss the colloquium paper.
International Human Rights Law critically examines both the substance and structure of the field of international human rights law. The main idea is to address the international law of human rights as a semi-autonomous (if not self-contained) regime within the legal order known as public international law. The course will thus facilitate intellectual engagement with 'the field' of international human rights law, resisting the typical approaches of it being characterised as either overly descriptive or normatively inert, and will blend conceptual and practical approaches to systematise the study of the field as a whole. It will be a generalist course which may be of broad interest for students interested in the intersection of public international law and human rights.
