Int'l LawSecurity

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course surveys two topics of great importance in contemporary International Relations—International Organizations and International Law—with specific emphasis on human rights norms and international humanitarian law, or the laws of war. This course examines the unique role international organizations such as the United Nations, the EU, NATO, and other regional organizations and non-governmental organizations play in international affairs, and how international law and international institutions have improved the human condition in both peacetime and during armed conflicts. This course will shed light on the function of law in international affairs, and how international law influences and constrains the behavior of nations. More importantly, this course will examine efforts to hold high-ranking government officials and non-state actors accountable for violating international humanitarian law. In so doing it will look at the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the various hybrid tribunals in administering international justice. This course further explores issues of global law-making, states’ compliance with international law, the relationship between human rights and international humanitarian law, and the nexus between law and war. Finally, this course takes a critical look at the changing nature of armed conflicts brought on by globalization and new technologies. The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the fields of International Organizations and International Law, more specifically, human rights and international humanitarian law. The course is also intended to highlight the role international organizations play in international relations, as independent actors and as agents of states. This course will examine in great detail the application of international humanitarian law during international and non-international armed conflicts and its ability to constrain the behavior of those engaged in combat and to protect the civilian population. The course begins by examining the nature of the international system and the specific role international organizations and international law play. This will be followed by an analysis of the nature of war, past and present. The course then examines the relationship between human rights norms and international humanitarian law and focuses specifically on the various conventions and treaties comprising the two bodies of law. The human rights conventions include: the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Genocide Convention, the Torture Convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The International Humanitarian Law conventions include: The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, the Geneva Conventions of 1925 and 1949, the 1977 Additional Protocols I & II to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and more recent conventions, such as the Chemical Weapon Convention, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the Ottawa Landmine Convention, and the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW) and Protocols. Part two of the course focuses on the different types of international crimes, such as Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, Genocide, Torture, other gross violations of human rights, and how these crimes are prosecuted by international tribunals. Students will gain valuable insight into the workings of the United Nations Security Council, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the hybrid tribunals for Sierra Leone, Kosovo, East Timor, Cambodia and Iraq. The conclusion of the course will draw upon new developments in international humanitarian law, such as ongoing war crimes trials before the ICC, ICTY & ICTR, new international humanitarian law conventions, and efforts to expand protection of international humanitarian law to unlawful combatants and persons not directly engaged in armed conflicts.