International Law Course Descriptions
ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CLINIC
Course # 728
Units: 2
Enrollment in this course is limited to those students who successfully complete Course No. 727 (International Human Rights Clinic), and subject to the Clinic Director’s approval.
Students enrolled in this advanced course will continue to work on previous human rights clinic projects and are expected to act as team leaders. They may also be assigned to new projects or be asked to help develop future clinic projects. This advanced clinic is designed to help students further develop their leadership and case management skills, with particular emphasis on time-management, interviewing, fact-finding, documenting, monitoring, and drafting. The advanced clinic will also provide students with the opportunity to have in-depth discussions of the human rights law that is relevant to their projects. Finally, advanced clinic students are likely to participate in some form of fieldwork, which may include travel abroad.
Students must register for 2 units of academic credit, which will be graded. This is the “A” portion of the course. Additionally, students may register for up to 2 additional units that are not graded (credit/no credit). This is the “B” portion of the course. Each unit represents 50 hours of course work per semester, including classroom time. All students must attend regular classroom sessions once each week for an hour and forty minutes and participate in periodic team meetings outside of regular classroom sessions. Classroom lectures and discussion will focus on substantive human rights law, legal skills, and review of ongoing cases and projects. Students are expected to lead group discussions of ongoing cases and projects.
Certificate: International Law, Public Interest and Social Justice Law (List A)
Professor: F. Rivera Juaristi
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
ADVANCED INTERNATIONAL LAW SEMINAR
Course # 305
Units: 3
Specific, most important, and acute problems of international law: issues recently on the program of the United Nations International Law Commission; recent cases of the International Court of Justice or other courts and tribunals; most important issues discussed by the doctrine; practical issues of international law. Issues include customary rule of international law; general principles of law; responsibility of states for internationally wrongful acts; reservations to treaties; international liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts not prohibited by international law; unilateral acts of states; diplomatic protection; question of the protection and inviolability of diplomatic agents and other persons entitled to special protection under international law; legality of nuclear weapons; use of force in international relations (Kosovo, Afghanistan); issues relating to international terrorism; status of combatants; status of detainees in international armed conflict, and their protection in the course of criminal proceedings. Intellectual property international issues could be also included among the subjects for discussion. Basic knowledge of international law required. 215 International Law recommended.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: TBA
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
CHINESE TRADE AND INVESTMENT LAW
Course # 219
Units: 2-3
Survey of recent Chinese economic legislation with special emphasis on foreign trade and investment. Study of various legislative and practical considerations involved with doing business with China. Consideration of issues such as how specific legislation assists Chinese economic development and how these laws and regulations have an impact on foreign businesses.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Anna Han
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 339
Units: 3
This course will focus on national and international institutional responses to the gravest environmental global threat this century and beyond. Topics to be covered include: an overview of climate change science and potential impacts of climate change, the primary international instruments to address climate change (the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol); national responses to climate change, with an emphasis on the policies of the United States and the role of climate change litigation at the sub-national, national and international levels.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Tseming Yang
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 438
Units: 2 – 3
Examination of the history, structure, and institutions of civil law, common law, and socialist legal traditions. Although several class meetings and individual research examine substantive law, emphasis is on study of legal systems and traditions. Primary focus is private law (the equivalent of common law system’s civil obligation) and some comparative constitutional law and criminal procedure.
Certificate: International Law
Professors: Philip Jimenez, Margalynne Armstrong
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 435
Units: 3
This course teaches the fundamentals of comprehensive privacy regulation approaches around the globe and introduces the major international privacy regulatory and enforcement institutions. The course focuses on the EU privacy regulatory framework as the strongest model for comprehensive regulatory schemes while drawing comparisons from EU to other frameworks. Prerequisite: Privacy Law (410). Students that have not taken the prerequisite that have taken and passed the CIPP exam as part of the privacy certificate are eligible.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Lydia De La Torre
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester- specific changes to the course description, units, or grading options.
Course # 220
Units: 3
Study of the problems that arise when the domiciles of the parties or other significant facts concerning a controversy are connected with states other than the state in which litigation occurs. Problems of jurisdiction of courts, choice of law, the effect of foreign judgments, and constitutional limitations.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Philip Jimenez
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units, or grading options.
CONTEMPORARY INTERNATIONAL ISSUES: CUBAN LEGAL SYSTEM
Course # 454
Units: 1-3
Faculty members rotate teaching this unique seminar which gives students a chance to explore with faculty contemporary, cutting-edge issues in international law. Course may require a paper, an exam, or both.
Certificate: International Law
Professors: TBA
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units, or grading options.
Course # 444
Units: 3
For decades energy has been one of the most critical state, national, and global issues. This class is an overview of the legal and policy issues associated with the development and use of energy resources. This course intersects the disciplines of environmental law, natural resources law, and publicly regulated industries. The class will study the environmental and resource management issues relating to solar, wind, hydroelectric, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear power. It will also cover the causes and regulation of global climate change and its impact on the energy sector. The class will study the regulation of the electricity industry, including the movement toward deregulation and the causes of the 2001 California energy crisis. The course will examine international energy issues, including the regulation of petroleum. This class will be of value to students interested in environmental law, natural resources law, water law, administrative law, and international law.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Catherine J. K. Sandoval
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units, or grading options.
GLOBALIZATION AND THE RULE OF LAW
Course # 247
Units: 2
With the dramatic end to the Cold War almost a decade ago, the world’s attention has expanded to include concerns centered on politics and national security to the impact of global finance, trade and investment. A new concept has emerged in this period–globalization–which some argue is an accurate way to describe the massive changes underway in the international economy. Others disagree, arguing that the more things change the more they remain the same–that today’s issues among nations continue to reflect longstanding differences. The debate is not simply academic but goes to the heart of policy choices being made by millions of people in every region of the globe. The questions raised by globalization are particularly acute for those countries attempting to break away from older state-centered patterns of political and economic organization. From the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union to many of the developing countries of Latin America, the Middle East and Asia efforts are underway to support new ways of doing business that look, on the surface at least, like American-style capitalism. But the legal institutions necessary to make this effort a success are, as yet, immature and underdeveloped. The risks and uncertainties that this process entails are complicated but represent an exiting challenge for legal scholars and policy makers. This seminar will discuss the major points of view in the globalization debate and explore the role that law plays in solving the problems raised by the new era. Each semester we concentrate on one particular issue- set of significance, such as corporate governance or international labor issues. Students will read both theory and examine case studies. Student-led discussion and research paper will be required. Limited enrollment.
Certificate: International Law
Professors: Stephen Diamond
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
IMMIGRATION APPELLATE PRACTICE BEFORE THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Course # 538
Units: 2
This course gives students an opportunity to enhance their advocacy skills through representation of individual clients in immigration cases pending before the United States court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Students will represent clients under the Ninth Circuit’s Pro Bono Program, which appoints counsel for certain applicants appearing pro se before the Court. Cases selected for the Pro Bono Program present issues of first impression complex issues of fact or law, or meritorious claims warranting further briefing. The Ninth Circuit’s Pro Bono Coordinator has requested that Santa Clara University School of Law participate in the Pro Bono Program. Public Interest and Social Justice Law Certificate course. (2 units).
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Evangeline Abriel
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 212
Units: 3
Examination of the Department of Justice, State Department, and Labor Department as they affect immigration and naturalization. Immigrant and non-immigrant visa problems; the exclusion, deportation, and naturalization processes.
Certificate: International Law
Professors: Pratheepan Gulasekaram Lynette Parker
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY PRACTICUM
Course # 338
Units: 2
Limited Enrollment. Seminar explores the concept of citizenship as a good that sovereignties distribute. Readings will focus on how nations choose to distribute citizenship, what citizenship entails, what it should entail, and what rights or privileges are or should be conditioned on citizenship. Class will involve significant student participation in the form of leading class discussions, and will require periodic two-page written responses to the reading materials. Course requires a substantial research paper as final assignment. Prior coursework in immigration law or comparative immigration law may be helpful, but is not necessary or required.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Pratheepan Gulasekaram
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS NEGOTIATION SIMULATION
Course # 528
Units: 3
This course will involve the negotiation of a licensing agreement transferring certain nanotechnology to a company in Korea. Students will represent a Silicon Valley company with an extensive patent portfolio which they market extensively in the United States. This proposal will be the first step in acquiring a global market. The Korean company will be represented by a team of law students from Seoul National University, supervised by Professor Ko, Hak Soo. Actual negotiations will be conducted by teleconference, in four 2- hour sessions. The first two weeks of the course will consist of an accelerated overview of international negotiation techniques, basic Korean patent law, and an introduction to the legal and business culture of Korea. Pre-requisite: 658 International Licensing Transactions; or 216 International Business Transactions; or 228 Technology Licensing; or 327 Negotiating. Enrollment with approval of professor. Enrollment limited to 10 students. Approved IP LL.M. course.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Philip Jimenez
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
Course # 216
Units: 3
Legal problems of international commercial transactions; trade and investment. Financing, contracts, shipping, and insurance questions. Problems of Third World development, including expropriation and nationalization. Approved IP LL.M. course.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Philip Jimenez
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL ARBITRATION
Course # 601
Course covers international commercial arbitration. Topics include the basic framework of international arbitration; the substantive aspects of the international arbitration agreement; the arbitral process itself; the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards under the New York Convention. The course will expose the contexts in which international commercial disputants carry out conflict resolution between them and how international commercial arbitration fits into the emerging and ever changing transnational schemes of private dispute resolution.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Gary Benton
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Course # 608
Units: 1-3
Problems of trans-frontier pollution and efforts to prevent and remedy damage through bilateral and multilateral arrangements. Focus on water and air pollution, preservation of endangered species, climate change, and ocean protection. The work of international organizations such as the United Nations Environmental Program, the OECD, and the Common Market.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Tseming Yang
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 440
Units: 2
International and regional mechanisms for the protection of individual rights; what those rights are; what procedures are available for use by attorneys in the United States. Offered spring semester, alternate years.
Certificate: International Law
Professors: Vinita Bali
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS CLINIC
Course # 727A
Units: 3
The international human rights clinic (IHRC) provides a unique educational opportunity for students to gain first-hand, practical experience working on international human rights litigation and advocacy projects. The clinic combines classroom education with supervised case and project management, providing students practical training in advocacy and lawyering skills. For every 50 hours of participation in the program, including casework and class attendance, a student earns one unit. The first 3 units of academic credit earned at IHRC are graded. Any earned units above 3 are graded credit/no credit.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Francisco J. Rivera Juaristi
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW
Course # 439
Units: 3
Provides a basic foundation for thinking about intellectual property problems that arise in an international context, with a focus on patent, copyright, trademark, and enforcement issues. Study of the key principles, agreements, and institutions that govern international intellectual property, and the political economy of globalization and intellectual property. Enrollment limited to students who have taken at least one course on intellectual property or who have the instructor’s permission. Approved IP LLM course. Prerequisite : IP Survey (388)
Certificate: International Law
Professors: Tyler Ochoa Colleen Chien
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 215
Units: 3
Survey of public international law involving close consideration of the specificity of international law, its nature, and sources. The international legal processes: international law, treaties, and the role of municipal courts and international organizations. Focus on selected current problems such as self-determination, intervention, and the expropriation of alien-owned property.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: David Sloss
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 341
Units: 2
This course explores classical and contemporary understandings of Islamic law, with an emphasis on Islamic legal methodology. Part of the challenge in studying Islamic law is its heterogeneity: there are several “schools” of Islamic law and there is no central religious adjudicative body. So an initial inquiry we will examine is what, exactly, Islamic law is. The course will begin with an analysis of the major schools of Islamic law and will then move to classical and contemporary understandings of how differences are resolved in Islamic law. Among the specific areas we will cover are: criminal law, apostasy, gender, Islamic finance, and Islamic constitutionalism. Students will be graded on class participation (50%) and on a series of short analytical essays. There will be no laptops allowed in class, and attendance is mandatory.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: W. David Ball
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course # 790
Units: 1-4
The Santa Clara Journal of International Law is dedicated to exploring current issues in public and private international law. The Journal is a collaborative student and faculty undertaking. Each volume focuses on a timely theme in international law. A Faculty Advisory Board solicits, reviews, approves relevant articles in collaboration with the Journal’s executive board. Student editors carry out article and technical editing of submitted articles and maintain the Journal’s web presence. These peer-reviewed, thematic issues will be the first of their kind published by an American law school. Although it began as a purely Internet-based journal, the Journal will be published in hard copy form going forward. Journal candidates must have a cumulative grade point average (GPA) of 2.67 at the time of candidate application review for board membership. Candidates must write and pass a case note and complete 50 hours of production work. They must also write a comment on an approved international legal topic. Student executive Board members must have a minimum 3.0 GPA.
Credit/No Credit. To register for this course students must obtain a permission number from the editor.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Tseming Yang
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
KGACLC IMMIGRATION INTERVIEWING AND ADVISING
Course # 469
Units: 1
Students counsel clients in the general advice immigration clinic on all aspects of immigration law including political asylum and deportation. In the VAWA (Violence Against Women Act) advice clinics, students advise immigrant victims of domestic violence. Students interested in interviewing clients with political asylum, VAWA (battered immigrant spouses and children), U Visa (victims of particularly serious crimes), and T Visa (victims of human trafficking) claims MUST also register for the 1-unit credit/no credit course on trauma and working with traumatized clients (Health Law 418B). This one-unit course will be offered at the Law Center. Students who are unable to register for this one-unit course will be able to interview clients with non-trauma immigration cases such as relative petitions, citizenship, and other types of deportation defense cases. Students may not take more than one interviewing and advising class without the prior approval of the instructors. Graded Credit/No Credit.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Lynette Parker
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
LEGAL ASPECTS OF WAR: HUMANITARIAN LAW
Course # 204
Units: 3
Examines the legalities of the decision to go to war under international and U.S. law, the International Law of War, and human rights law. Coverage includes the War Powers Resolution and litigation regarding U.S. use of force in Vietnam, Central America, and the Persian Gulf; Nuremberg and other post-World War II legal prosecutions and postwar Geneva Conventions and Protocols; the legal responses to such issues as the capture of Adolf Eichmann and the My Lai massacre, the bombing of North Vietnam (1964- 72) and Iraq (1991), and the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia; and the foundational texts of human rights law, particularly those relating to war and its consequences.
Certificate: International Law
Professors: Claudia Josi
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course #352
Units: 1-2
Seminar required for law students participating in immersion trip to El Salvador. Topics for discussion include the role of law in democratic transitions, interface between law and development, structure of the legal system, justice issues, etc.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Evangeline Abriel
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
ONLINE DISPUTE RESOLUTION: THE STATE OF THE ART
Course #568
Units: 1
Courts cannot handle online disputes. The judicial system is slow, expensive, and geographically bound. Rapidly expanding e-commerce, the growth in cross-boundary transactions, and the inability of traditional legal processes to deal with disputes arising over the web has created a need for online redress options. The international consensus is that online alternative dispute resolution is the best solution to these problems. Online ADR (or “ODR”) can resolve online disputes quickly, confidentially, and effectively. It helps parties to be at their best, it connects capable neutrals with parties in effective ways, and it brings efficiencies to inefficient online marketplaces.
ODR is the hottest area of the ADR field right now. But it is still in its infancy. Do the rules of offline ADR apply to ODR? How does technology change the equation? Can ODR be effective when parties are not looking into the other side’s eyes? How can offline neutrals best translate their skills online? How can technology merge with face-to-face ADR to make it more effective?
In this Seminar we’ll examine the development of ODR, think through some of the new challenges it poses to neutrals and systems designers, and look at all the major providers, administrative agencies, and international organizations currently involved. We’ll also get to try out state-of-the-art ODR technologies through a series of simulations, and to begin to wrestle with the challenges of providing effective dispute resolution online.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Colin Rule
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
REPRESENTING THE SPANISH SPEAKING CLIENT
Course # 610
Units: 1
Includes a conversational and a written component. The conversational component focuses on attorney-client communication in the context of criminal, landlord/tenant, family, administrative, and immigration matters. The written component focuses on letters to clients. The exam includes a taped interview with a client. A basic working knowledge of Spanish is required, but students need not be a native speaker. Graded Credit/No Credit.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Lynette Parker
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
SUING GOVERNMENTS: FEDERAL, STATE AND FOREIGN
Course # TBD
Units: TBD
Much of the civil litigation in U.S. courts today involves suits by private plaintiffs against government agencies and/or officers. Lawsuits of this type are an essential mechanism for holding governments accountable and promoting the rule of law. Plaintiffs who sue government defendants face unique obstacles that do not arise in private litigation. This course explores various procedural mechanisms for overcoming those obstacles. The course will be divided into three parts: suits against state and local government defendants; suits against federal government defendants; and suits against foreign government defendants.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: David Sloss
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
Course #367
Units: 3
Transitional justice mechanisms have been frequently used in recent years to provide accountability for gross human rights violations and acts of mass atrocity (genocide, crimes against humanity, and ‘ethnic cleansing’) carried out within a state or in the context of an armed conflict. In this course we will examine the legacies of such abuses and the institutions and processes that different societies have used to address them. Readings, lectures, and discussions will be structured around four main elements of transitional justice (truth, justice, reparations and institutional reforms), comparing the approaches of countries in Latin America, Africa, and Europe. The course will also deal with the gender dimensions of transitional justice and will discuss the complex relationship between peace-building, reconciliation and development in the context of fragile peace processes. The course will use historical and contemporary case studies (e.g. South Africa, Rwanda, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Peru, as well as the experiences of the Arab Spring, such as Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt) to gain a better understanding of whether and how the different mechanisms of transitional justice have contributed to goals such as peace, justice, and reconciliation. Students will be encouraged to bring cases and examples that interest them to the course in order to stimulate debate and discussion and to engage with current processes and developments in various regions of the world.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: Claudia Josi
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.
US FOREIGN RELATIONS LAW SEMINAR
Course # 550
Units: 2
A body of law that influences the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Includes treaties, customary international law, domestic constitutional law, and domestic statutes. This seminar will explore selected topics in the field of U.S. foreign relations law.
Certificate: International Law
Professor: David Sloss
Students should also check the current course schedule to view any semester-specific changes to the course description, units or grading options.