General provisions

Determined on August 25, 2010 by Faculty of Law’s Teaching Committee, Uppsala University, by virtue of Chapter 6 Section 14 and 15 of the Higher Education Ordinance. Altered on November 14, 2012. The course plan enters into force autumn semester 2012.

In General

The course is 15 university points (15 ECTS credits) and an optional course at advanced level in the studies for the degree of Master of Laws, according to the degree requirements adopted 16 April 2007 by the Board of the Faculty of Law of Uppsala University. The course is held in English.

Entry requirements

In general, Swedish students must have attained five passes out of the six courses given at level 1 of the LL.M programme. All the obligatory phases of the course in which the student has not attained a pass must have been fulfilled. Swedish students must have passed the exam for Term course 6.

If special reasons exist the board of exemption may grant exemption from the acceptance requirements.

Foreign students should have a passing grade from an exam in a basic course on the subject, public international law.

Learning outcomes

Students, after having completed the course should have:

• Broader and deeper knowledge of the basic principles and sources of public international law as well as knowledge of how these have changed and are changing as a result of globalisation.
• Detailed knowledge of and insight into how public international law functions, how it is used in practice and how it can be used by lawyers in different national fora.
• Detailed knowledge of public international law methodology.
• An improved knowledge of oral and written techniques of presentation.
• An improved ability to argue and evaluate complicated international legal issues.
• Knowledge of the importance of keeping essay submission times.

Criteria for grades

For the grade "approved" (B) the student shall, in addition to showing an ability to present complex international legal issues orally and an ability to submit essays on time, achieve all the other learning outcomes, showing an ability to present and summarise material in a descriptive and reflective way.

For the higher grade "approved with merit" (Ba) the student shall, in addition to fulfiling the requirements for grade B, show an ability to structure material and to reason independently, critically and analytically.

For the highest grade "approved with distinction" (AB) the student shall, in addition to fulfiling the requirements for grade Ba, show an ability to structure material well, to analyse well, to compare and evaluate critically and to argue convincingly, with a high degree of independence.

Good oral presentations during seminars are taken into account when and if a student’s written work is on the border-line between two grades.

Content

The course deals with basic principles of public international law.

Instruction

The teaching is mainly in the form of seminars and lectures.

Attendance at all seminars is compulsory. If special reasons exist, the teacher responsible for the course may exempt a student from attending a particular seminar and require appropriate replacement tasks to be performed.

Each student must actively participate in the teaching, by preparing for the seminars and actively taking part in the seminar discussions. Presentation of short written papers may also be required.

The required preparation for the seminars consists of the literature for the course as a whole, and whatever special reading instructions are given for each seminar.

Assessment

The exam consists of essays written during the course. The marks that are given for the essays are added together to give a total result leading to the grade given for the course. If an essay is not handed in at the due time, without medical or other legitimate cause, the essay can only receive the grade pass. A student who has failed to hand in the essay in due time, may, at the examiner’s discretion, be given the opportunity to submit additional written work which, however, may only receive the pass grade. A student who has failed the course will be given an opportunity, on one occasion to submit a retake essay (graded normally) for each essay failed on a topic and at a time determined by the examiner shortly after the end of the course. A retake essay may alternatively be submitted by a student who has failed the course the next time the course is given, at the submission time for the essay(s) in question.

Deception on the part of a student in the examination or in graded course work is prohibited. It is, for example, cheating to submit an essay containing another person’s unattributed work. See, for more details, the written instructions on essay submission. Where plagiarism or cooperation in the writing of essays or other forms of cheating is suspected, this may be reported to the University Discipline Board which can decide on an official warning or a period of up to six months suspension of studies.

The grades given are Fail (U), and the passing grades Pass (B), Pass with credit (Ba) and Pass with distinction (AB).