LLB

This course introduces students to the general principles of criminal law and to the social, economic, political and moral context in which they have developed. The course concentrates on fatal and non-fatal offences against the person, sexual offences and offences against property. It also examines the range of defences that may be available to a criminal charge, and principles of secondary and incohoate liability. On successful completion of the course, students should be able to state and explain: the general principles of liability under English criminal law; the substantive elements of major offences including homicide, non-fatal offences against the person, sexual offences, and offences against property; principles of secondary and inchoate liability; both partial and general defences to criminal liability. Students should also be able to demonstrate knowledge of the doctrine of criminal law in its social, economic, political and moral context.

This course introduces students to the basic concepts and skills that are necessary to engage meaningfully in the study of law. Students will be introduced to the idea" of law, given a foundation in the composite elements and structures of the English legal system, as well as an understanding of the global/comparative dimension in which any domestic legal system exists. "

Many specialised areas of contracting such as commercial law, employment law, the law on the sale of goods, carriage of goods and insurance law are areas of law that are based on a set of fundamental principles known as Contract Law. These principles are the starting point for the specific modifications and extensions that make up the law for one of these specific areas of contracting. This course introduces and examines some of the key doctrines in Contract law. Many of them were created in the 19th century and reflect the laissez-faire commercial ideology of the times. Contract law’s key debates and discussions, the evolution of its principles and doctrines, the role of contract and the limits to what it can achieve are examined.

Property is fundamental to the entire legal system. In this course, apart from introducing the theoretical underpinnings of the idea of property, this course also deals with the legal rules pertaining to property in England and Wales. It will go through the idea of ownership, estates, equitable interests in property, trusts of land, registration and the transfer of interests and title.

This course is designed to provide an introduction to the study constitutional law and to constitutional theory, crucially looking at critical accounts of constitutionalism, and situate the British constitution in a broader, global context. It will also focus on the core principles of the British constitution and the role of Parliament as well as the practice of the modern constitution and the role of the courts.

The Law of Tort is the law that relates to civil wrongdoing, where one person might have a right to sue another person, usually for financial compensation, in the civil courts. A particular focus of our course is the law of negligence, which imposes a wide-ranging duty on all members of society to take 'reasonable care' not to cause harm to persons whom we might foresee are likely to be affected by our actions.

Other topics studied in the course include the duties owed by occupiers of land to visitors, the obligations in relation to nuisance (usually neighbours), defect products and intentional interference with the person. Tort is a dynamic, developing area of law that requires us to engage in debates about when, and to what extent, the law should intervene to protect certain rights and how the law mediates between the conflicting rights of citizens. In this course we discuss how these issues can be resolved through rules that meet the standards of clarity, certainty and predictability that we expect from the law.

This is the second, more advanced Property course that you are required to study. It can only be taken after studying Property I and builds upon the concepts, mechanisms and substantive interests considered in that course, addressing the more complex proprietary relationships that arise in this context.

The course consequently focuses on the often conflicting interests that arise within property relationships in the context of the substantive interests considered last year, primarily in the area of trusts and real property.

This module introduces students to the study of the traditional and modern legal systems of Asian and African countries. We explore different ways of thinking about the 'law' and 'legal systems' before offering an analysis of the impact of empire and colonialism (especially European/British) on the legal systems of Asia and Africa while paying particular attention to the concerns of gender equality in the multicultural societies of these regions. Our study of themes such as legal pluralism, law and religion, law and colonialism, legal transplants and women's rights is bolstered by indepth case studies from disparate jurisdictions including India, Nigeria, China, Tanzania and Kenya.

This module presents, from a comparative perspective, an overview of Islamic law in its historical and evolutional perspective. Islamic legal theory is covered comprehensively in term one. This includes a critical analysis of the legal history, jurisprudential development, the schools of Islamic law, classical and modern theories, evolution of the law up to the present, and its contemporary applications. The module engages with both classical and contemporary scholarship and current critical theoretical debates ongoing in the field. Islamic criminal law and judicial procedure are also covered as aspects of Islamic substantive law in term one.

This module introduces students to the basic principles of human rights law. It will provide them with a historical and theoretical context for understanding the contemporary protection of human rights, and introduce them to principles, rights as well as the leading regimes (global and regional) for the protection of human rights.

This module provides an introduction to the main concepts and principles of public international law (PIL) with specific emphasis on their practical impact on the conduct of international affairs. It is structured into three parts. The module focuses on the foundations of Public International Law (subjects, sources, principles and relations between international and domestic law) and prepares students to take specialised modules in public international law. The module highlights the application of public international law and its relevance in relation to Asia, Africa and the Middle East through readings that engage international law outside of the mainstream Western context.

This module introduces the foundations of international environmental law, including its subjects, sources, principles and measures of implementation, compliance and dispute settlement. It explores the range of laws and norms that impact on global environmental problems. This module is built around the understanding that international environmental law is about both conservation and use (captured in the notion of sustainable development). It is also structured around an understanding that it is the North-South dimension of environmental issues that explains a large part of existing international environmental law

It provides an introduction to the principles of international environmental law (such as the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the precautionary principle), environmental justice (human rights, participatory rights), examines questions related to compliance, effectiveness and enforcement of international environmental law; the governance and institutional framework governing the environment at the international level; and links with other branches of international law, such as human rights.

This module provides a broad introduction to debates on Criminal Justice, Race and Rights and is designed for students who are interested in theories of race, crime, rights and the Criminal Justice system in the UK. It is set out to give a deep understanding of the theories and rationales underlying race, crime and the criminal justice and to help students critically reflect the system. It engages with some of the most important issues in the UK, such as the discretionary police power, stop and search, police questioning, pre-trial detention, the under-funded and variable quality of criminal defence, the value and limitations of human rights, guilty pleas and its impact on racialised communities in Britain and beyond. It begins with a socio-legal approach to the subject grounding theories of crime and race within a broader socio-political analysis and context.

Criminal Justice, Race and Rights is a broad-based topic and the course therefore adopts a theoretical, substantive and case-study approach while adopting critical, social legal approaches to understand contemporary race, crime and criminal justice issues. The seminar materials provide students with the historical, legal practice and theoretical foundations while adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of law and provides tools for analysing the material in the case studies with a critical analysis of case law and statutory instruments.

This module aims to provide students with an introduction to feminist theory and its intersections with the law and legal philosophy. By focusing on both legal and theoretical materials the module encourages students to critically engage with the ways in which law, gender and sexuality come to be mutually constituted. Using the major schools of feminist theory, including liberal, cultural, postcolonial, critical race and queer legal feminisms, we will examine the relation between law and gender in Asian and African countries.

This course focuses on specialised areas of international law with an emphasis on contemporary problems and critical perspectives.  The subject matter may vary according to changing world events or cutting-edge developments in international law but is likely to explore the following issues: self-determination of peoples (including Palestine, Western Sahara, and Chagos); Occupation (including Northern Cyprus, the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Iraq); war & war crimes; nuclear weapons and nuclear testing in the South Pacific; Global health law and pandemics; the climate catastrophe; and the law of sea and space.

The module is designed to provide students with an in-depth introduction of human rights law in the UK context. It will provide students with a historical and theoretical context to understand the factors and dynamics that have informed the development of human rights law, in the national, colonial/post-colonial and international arena, and the doctrinal foundations to grasp the main aspects of contemporary UK human rights law, particularly the UK Human Rights Act, its potential reform and the UK relationship with the Strasbourg Court. It provides an opportunity for students to critically engage with key rights and human rights themes, such as accountability for military operations overseas, artificial intelligence, date protection and the role of class and poverty in the human rights context.

This module will focus on the evolving drivers of consumer law including the safeguards of consumer rights under English law and emerging trends that impact consumer protection. The module will provide students the opportunity to acquire solid knowledge of the very complex and evolving area of consumer law and its interrelationship with English Sales law. Through this module, students will gain a good balance of knowledge, research, application of knowledge in the evolving field of consumer law. Specifically, the module will cover the basic principles of consumer law, consumer contracts, consumer credit, consumer remedies, consumer dispute settlement, international consumer law and emerging issues in consumer contracts. This module will broadly provide students with a solid understanding of the operation of the legal and regulatory framework of consumer law in the domestic context and the impact of emerging issues.

Islamic family law is comprehensively covered with principal focus on the law of marriage, dissolution of marriages, guardianship and child custody. These are examined in light of classical rules and recent family law reforms in the Muslim world. Current applicable family laws of selected Muslim-majority states will be examined within the context of the classical rules. Judicial decisions from UK courts in relation to Islamic law, as well as from courts in different parts of the Muslim world will also be examined. The module is based principally on contemporary English-language scholarship and no prior knowledge of Arabic language is required or presumed.

Islamic legal theory includes a critical analysis of the legal history, jurisprudential development, the schools of Islamic law, classical and modern theories, evolution of the law up to the present, and its contemporary applications. The module engages with both classical and contemporary scholarship and current critical theoretical debates ongoing in the field. Islamic criminal law and judicial procedure are also covered as aspects of Islamic substantive law in term one.

This course offers an introduction to European Union law including the history of EU integration, the EU institutional framework, its law-making process, and the law of the internal market und the monetary union. It will provide an overview of the Court of Justice's role as a motor of integration, the major doctrines of European Community law, and analysis of the legal argumentation of the Court of Justice in many key decisions in the main areas of EU law with particular attention given to the Court of Justice's pro-Union interpretative approach.

The module distinguishes and analyses legal systems by reference to the political dispensations in which they exist and which they may play a role in constituting.

This module focuses on family law in England and Wales. It provides students with a knowledge of private and public law relating to the family and to family breakdown, domestic violence, the law of family financial provision, children and advances in fertilisation.

This module aims to introduce students to the many ways in which law and society interact in the subcontinent. We seek to do so by using, as far as possible, authors from the region, and focus on issues that continue to hold contemporary relevance.

This module presents, from a comparative perspective, an overview of Islamic law in its historical and evolutional perspective. Islamic legal theory is covered comprehensively in term one. This includes a critical analysis of the legal history, jurisprudential development, the schools of Islamic law, classical and modern theories, evolution of the law up to the present, and its contemporary applications. The module engages with both classical and contemporary scholarship and current critical theoretical debates ongoing in the field. Islamic criminal law and judicial procedure are also covered as aspects of Islamic substantive law in term one.

The ISP is a 10,000-word essay on an approved legal topic of the student’s choice, which requires independent work, original thought, long hours of research and numerous times of drafting and re-drafting.

This module will focus on the drivers of commercial transactions in a global context; the application of trade terms in the international sale of goods; the application of the Convention for the International Sale of Goods (CISG); agency relationships; and international payment by Documentary letters of credit. This module will provide students with a solid understanding of the operation of cross border sale of goods under international law.

This course will introduce students to the general law and practice of commercial arbitration. It will engage with the theoretical basis of arbitration; its regulatory regimes; the fundamental nature of the arbitration agreement in any consensual arbitration; the role of the arbitrators in the reference; and how the final award can be enforced or challenged before a national court.

This course explores the development of the ADR movement, combinng a practical experience of mediation through role plays with a critical understanding of ADR and mediation in particular. The course begins with an examination of the tenets on which ADR is based, its relationship to civil law, and how it is applied in different contexts. It discusses the various areas in which ADR operates including community, civil and family mediation, and includes a consideration of the psychology and the ethics of ADR.

The course will provide an in-depth introduction to asylum and immigration law in the United Kingdom. It covers key concepts; the development of the field of law viewed in historical and political context; asylum law, particularly the refugee definition, status determination and procedural rights; questions of nationality and the system of immigration control and enforcement. It also considers how EU law and human rights standards impact(ed) UK law governing asylum and immigration. Drawing on a range of theoretical accounts, policy documents, case law and critical analysis of developments at the national, regional and international level, the course enables students to acquire both sound knowledge of the law and critical awareness of the biases, gaps and challenges in the current system. By locating UK asylum and immigration law in the broader context of global developments, it allows students to appreciate the multiple standpoints and factors that influence law and practice in the field. This is complemented by a clinic element that offers students the opportunity to gain fist-hand experience of applying asylum and immigration law through working with a cross-section of practitioners (community law centres, NGOs, law firms).

This module provides an introduction to the main concepts and principles of public international law (PIL) with specific emphasis on their practical impact on the conduct of international affairs. It is structured into three parts. The module focuses on the foundations of Public International Law (subjects, sources, principles and relations between international and domestic law) and prepares students to take specialised modules in public international law. The module highlights the application of public international law and its relevance in relation to Asia, Africa and the Middle East through readings that engage international law outside of the mainstream Western context.

This module introduces the foundations of international environmental law, including its subjects, sources, principles and measures of implementation, compliance and dispute settlement. It explores the range of laws and norms that impact on global environmental problems. This module is built around the understanding that international environmental law is about both conservation and use (captured in the notion of sustainable development). It is also structured around an understanding that it is the North-South dimension of environmental issues that explains a large part of existing international environmental law

It provides an introduction to the principles of international environmental law (such as the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and the precautionary principle), environmental justice (human rights, participatory rights), examines questions related to compliance, effectiveness and enforcement of international environmental law; the governance and institutional framework governing the environment at the international level; and links with other branches of international law, such as human rights.

This module is intended to redress that lacuna and afford students the opportunity to explore and understand the multiple dimensions, dynamics and consequences of the long arc from the slave trade through slavery to post-slavery as fundamentally determined, conditioned, enabled, and regulated by law.

“The Law of Oceans and Outer Space,” the first of its kind in a UK law school, aims to offer critical and interdisciplinary approaches understanding historical and contemporary legal issues affecting oceans and outer space. The choice to combine the study and teaching of oceanic and outer space legal governance results from the following similarities: 1) (in contrast to traditional public international law topics) the fundamental “non-state” nature of oceans and outer space as objects of legal study and regulation, and the methodological challenges that the shared unique feature of these fields poses; 2) the historical connections in the development of the law of the sea and outer space law; (re: shared concepts, conceptualisations, and legislative actors); 3) the increasing importance of both oceans and outer space as potential locations of both human conflict and survival.

Access to Justice and Legal Skills I is a module which enables students to gain practical knowledge of legal skills. These skills will be taught as foundations of legal practice such as advocacy, communication skills writing and drafting legal documents, client interview techniques, legal research as well as professional ethics. This module will deliver a combination of transferable legal skills and theoretical knowledge on selected fields.

Access to Justice and Legal Skills II is a module based on the School of Law’s strong commitment to promoting equality, diversity, and tolerance not just on campus, but also in the wider community. This module capitalises on the learnings of the Access to Justice and Legal Skills I course and will enable students to provide pro bono services to enhance social justice. The module is designed to benefit vulnerable individuals by improving their access to justice and promoting the rule of law and therefore contributing to closing the gap on the inequality in accessing justice. 

This advanced module in administrative law is aimed as a follow up to Public Law. In the first place the coverage is designed to provide partly from a comparative perspective an introduction to the functioning of governmental and administrative institutions but as an over arching theme this module seeks to provide a critical understanding of the mechanisms for the control of public power in the United Kingdom and a range of other jurisdictions.

This advanced module in administrative law is aimed as a follow up to Public Law. In the first place the coverage is designed to provide partly from a comparative perspective an introduction to the functioning of governmental and administrative institutions but as an over arching theme this module seeks to provide a critical understanding of the mechanisms for the control of public power in the United Kingdom and a range of other jurisdictions.

Islamic family law is comprehensively covered with principal focus on the law of marriage, dissolution of marriages, guardianship and child custody. These are examined in light of classical rules and recent family law reforms in the Muslim world. Current applicable family laws of selected Muslim-majority states will be examined within the context of the classical rules. Judicial decisions from UK courts in relation to Islamic law, as well as from courts in different parts of the Muslim world will also be examined. The module is based principally on contemporary English-language scholarship and no prior knowledge of Arabic language is required or presumed.

Islamic legal theory includes a critical analysis of the legal history, jurisprudential development, the schools of Islamic law, classical and modern theories, evolution of the law up to the present, and its contemporary applications. The module engages with both classical and contemporary scholarship and current critical theoretical debates ongoing in the field. Islamic criminal law and judicial procedure are also covered as aspects of Islamic substantive law in term one.

This module aims to introduce students to the many ways in which law and religion interact in the subcontinent. We study Hindu and Muslim religious personal laws in South Asia and their history and development,  before examining the increasing rise of religious intolerance and religious nationalism in India and Pakistan and the legislative and judicial responses to these challenges. Lastly, we analyse whether ‘secularism’ can ever truly be at home in the subcontinent.

This module aims to introduce students to the many ways in which rights and justice can be conceived in the subcontinent. We will study issues of social justice, caste, and affirmative action; access to justice and public interest litigation; gender and queer justice; environmental justice; and also, the denial of justice in South Asia. We seek to do so by using, as far as possible, authors from the region, and focus on issues that continue to hold contemporary relevance.

Intellectual property is a collective noun for an aggregate of individual disciplines of law: copy right, sui generis databases right, designs, patents, breach of confidence and trade marks. The only common theme among them is that all are concerned with intangible creation. Although the term intellectual property also includes plant and seed varieties, geographical indication, malicious falsehood and protection of performers, these will not be dealt with in this module. 

Intellectual property is a collective noun for an aggregate of individual disciplines of law: copy rights, sui generis databases right, designs, patents, breach of confidence and trade marks. The only common theme among them is that all are concerned with intangible creation. Although the term intellectual property also includes plant and seed varieties, geographical indication, malicious falsehood and protection of performers, these will not be dealt with in this module. 

This module focuses on family law in England and Wales. It provides students with a knowledge of private and public law relating to the family and to family breakdown, domestic violence, the law of family financial provision.

This module focuses on family law in England and Wales. It provides students with a knowledge of private and public law relating to the family and children and advances in fertilisation.

This module aims to introduce students to a range of theoretical and legal approaches to the study of law, multiculturalism and rights and to equip them with the critical tools to apply a critique to the liberal conception of ‘rights’. In doing so it provides a critique of legal concepts, categories and reasoning in a variety of context while drawing upon debates on intersectionality and an interdisciplinary framework for the study of law, legal disputes and legal pluralism.