Public International Law - LAWS3381
Faculty: Faculty of Law
School: Faculty of Law
Course Outline: See below
Campus: Kensington Campus
Career: Undergraduate
Units of Credit: 6
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
Enrolment Requirements:
Pre-requisite: Crime & Criminal Process (LAWS1021/JURD7121) & Criminal Laws (LAWS1022/JURD7122) OR Crim. Law 1 (LAWS1001/JURD7101) & Crim. Law 2 (LAWS1011/JURD7111). Co-requisite: Litigation 1 [LAWS2311/ JURD7211] OR Res. Civil Disp. (LAWS2371/JURD7271)
Excluded: JURD7481
CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)
Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule
Further Information: See Class Timetable
View course information for previous years.
Description
International law seeks to order human affairs at the international level. Accordingly, it covers a vast field, including autonomy of peoples and territories, the allocation of resources (land, maritime, air), the preservation of the environment, the regulation of inter-State transactions, the resolution of disputes and the maintenance of international peace and security. International law has become not only an important, but an integral, part of both the international and domestic legal orders. The centrality of international law to our everyday lives and, in particular, to our practice as lawyers, cannot be overstated.
Recommended Prior Knowledge
Course Objectives
- To assist students to develop an understanding of the issues involved in the regulation of human affairs beyond a single State
- To give students a basic working knowledge of the structure of the international legal system and its relationship to the Australian legal system
- To enable students to develop an awareness of different methods of international as compared to national law, in such matters as textual interpretation and working with judicial decisions
- To assist students to recognize international legal problems in their subsequent careers and to point them in the direction of ways of resolving them
Main Topics
- Nature, scope and development of international law
- Structure of the international legal system
- Sources of international law
- Law of treaties
- International and municipal law
- Personality, statehood and recognition
- Title to territory
- State jurisdiction
- Immunity from jurisdiction
- State responsibility
Assessment
Class participation - 10%
Mid-term research assignment (optional) - 25%
Final exam - either 65% or 90% depending on optional essay
Course Texts
Prescribed
- DJ Harris, Cases and Materials on International Law (7th ed 2010)
- The 2nd edition of the Australian Supplement to Harris
Recommended
- G Triggs, International Law: Contemporary Principles and Practices (LexisNexis Butterworths, 2nd ed 2010)
- S Blay, R Piotrowicz and M Tsamenyi, Public International Law: An Australian Perspective (2nd ed OUP Melbourne 2005)
- D Rothwell et al International Law (CUP, Cambridge, 2010)
- I Brownlie, Basic Documents in International Law (5th ed OUP Oxford 2002)
- M Evans (ed) International Law Documents (7th ed OUP Oxford 2005)
- M Shaw, Public International Law (6th ed CUP Cambridge 2008)
A particularly useful resource can be found at http://www.oup.com/uk/orc/bin/statutes/books/02international/weblinks, with links to all the major treaties.
Study Levels
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