Certificate in Law

This module offers an introduction to law on armed conflict, including collective security, the use of force, international humanitarian law and counter-terrorism. These are studied alongside legal reforms in response to contemporary understandings of the relationship between war and gender.

The module provides important introductory material for students who do not have a background in international law and wish to take other international law units at SOAS.

This half unit module provides an introduction to the law of armed conflict (international humanitarian law).  It will examine the history and sources of international humanitarian law, its relationship with the jus ad bellum, and the basic principles that have governed its development .

The module aims to explore historical and contemporary dimensions of the relationship between international law and colonialism.

This module “de-colonizes” comparative constitutional law: It introduces students to critical approaches to comparative law; it de-centres the “role model” constitutions; it critiques mainstream liberal theories that idealise these constitutions; and it sheds light on often marginalised constitutional histories and systems.

This course begins with an interrogation of where and what is Southeast Asia and whether it is meaningful as a subject of legal inquiry. The readings for the course will introduce students to a variety of theories and approaches used by legal scholars to understand law in Southeast Asia.

This offers an investigation into the theories and key texts that inform several other courses currently being offered, such as Indigenous Land Rights; Colonialism, Empire and International Law; Law and Society in South Asia; and others. This course does not overlap but provides part of the groundwork that will complement these courses.

This subject will provide a comprehensive overview of the emerging discipline of international criminal law. The discipline will be approached historically, theoretically, and critically. First, the course will examine the historical origins of the fundamental principle of international criminal law – individual criminal responsibility – and trace the evolution of the international criminal tribunals that apply that principle. Second, the course will explain the core theoretical assumptions of the subject, focusing in particular on the rationales for punishment (retribution, creating a historical record, promoting peace and reconciliation, etc.) and for the creation and operation of international criminal tribunals. Third, the course will take a critical look at the discipline’s core theoretical assumptions, asking whether alternatives to international trials might better achieve the discipline’s stated goals.

The objective of this module is to enable students to apply knowledge of feminist legal theory and the study of gender and sexuality to a series of legal problems. The module will provide an in-depth study of one, two or three issues relevant to gender and sexuality law reform primarily in the Global South.

The objective of this course is to enable students to become well versed in the field of feminist legal theory and the study of gender and sexaulity in relation to law, with specific attention to the relevance and meaning within non-Western states.

This module examines the nature of international investment and its legal regimes; the impact of foreign and domestic investment on the economic development of states; the protections afforded investors and their interpretations, the role of states and the impact of investment law on their regulatory powers; and the ICSID dispute resolution mechanism for investment related disputes between foreign investors and states. This module aims to equip students with a clear understanding and critical engagement of these issues from a legal perspective and particularly as it relates to developing and capital importing states.

In this module we examine theories about the relationship between law, rights and social change, using country and thematic case studies to illuminate and deepen our understanding of both the potential and the limits of what may be achieved through the language and architecture of law and rights. With a special focus on some of the countries in the SOAS mandate, we explore the possibilities for human agency for change through law and rights, identifying national and international constraints, in relation to issues and situations that pose some of the greatest challenges to the concept of rights as a valuable tool for social change.

This course aims at giving students a solid and comprehensive foundation of key concepts of environmental law and a grounding in some of the most topical and foundational debates. These include the role of justice frameworks in relation to environmental law, as well as key debates in environmental legal regulation. The aim is to provide a platform from which to better appreciate some of the central tensions and dynamics in the study of environmental law generally. The course will introduce environmental law in its North-South context, in historical perspective, in a domestic, comparative and regional context. It will cover the context for environmental regulation, principles and regulatory techniques from a theoretical and practical perspective.

This course focuses on global commons, in other words all the resources that are beyond state sovereignty either because they do not fall under their jurisdiction or because they have not been appropriated for legal or other reasons.

This module is concerned with biodiversity and in particular the sixth mass extinction.
It addresses specifically law and policy around the broad themes of biodiversity, wildlife and habitats.