View Specification DocumentCurrent Issues in International Law and Global Security LAW4222
- Academic Session: 2026-27
- School: School of Law
- Credits: 20
- Level: Level 4 (SCQF level 10)
- Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
- Available to Visiting Students: Yes
- Curriculum For Life: No
Short Description
This course exposes students to the wide range of challenges to global security, broadly understood, and to develop a critical understanding of the role of international law in relation to them. It proceeds from a holistic understanding of global security now dominant in United Nations discourse that extends beyond issues of peace and war, and includes major humanitarian and environmental challenges such as migration, climate change and transnational cooperation against organised crime.
Timetable
10 two-hour seminars throughout the semester.
Requirements of Entry
LLB students and visiting law students.
Excluded Courses
None.
Co-requisites
None.
Assessment
Students will be required to sit a 2-hour exam that will account for 100% of the final mark.
Course Aims
1. To provide students with a thorough and critical understanding of the contemporary global security, peace and development challenges.
2. To enable students critically to reflect on the role of international law in relation to these challenges.
3. To familiarise students with linkages and connections between different regimes addressing challenges to global security.
4. To expose students to approaches adopted in law and social sciences to the study of global security.
Intended Learning Outcomes of Course
By the end of this course students will be able to:
1. To demonstrate advanced knowledge and awareness of the legal and political framework relating to global security;
2. To demonstrate critical understanding of the role of law in global security and of its relationship with politics;
3. To apply legal rules to concrete situations;
4. To evaluate the efficacy of legal rules and mechanisms in managing global security.