Curriculum

Comparative Freedom of Speech (MacArthur)

This course will provide an examination of the freedom of speech and expression in various countries including statutory and case-based limitations on free speech. This is an increasingly important and ever-changing area since, with advances in technology, speech and expression is now disseminated worldwide with ever growing political and personal consequences.

Comparative Law: Civil Law Tradition & Common Law Tradition (Michael)

Comparative Law, will begin with a consideration of the goals, purposes and applications of comparative law. The course will focus on the civil law tradition, including its historical roots in Roman Law. The modern civil law and its development will be considered. The course will then concentrate on the modern Italian legal system: its structures and procedures, legal education, the legal and judicial professions, civil and criminal procedure. The course may also consider some specific areas of Italian substantive law. This will be followed by an examination of the common law tradition as it developed in England and Wales. The contemporary English legal system will be compared to the common law tradition as it developed in the United States.

European Union Law (Shoenberger)

This course provides an overview of the substantive legal rules intended to make the European Union into an internal market, of importance to American businesses and lawyers alike. The course covers the Treaty of Rome provisions and associated legislation on free trade within the European Union, the free movement of persons, anti-competitive business practices and the abuse of market power. The principle doctrines and the judgments of the European Court of Justice are analyzed.

International Business Transactions (Gathii)

This course will review the regimes of international private law, international economic law and public international law which together provide a regulatory context for international business/commercial transactions. This course examines the basic theoretical, historical and doctrinal underpinning of regulatory structures for international commercial transactions. Learning in this course will, therefore, take place primarily through discussing the materials and cases assigned for each class. Lecturing will be secondary to discussion. This course will also service as a forum for informed discussion of current issues connected to law as these may concern international business transactions.

International Human Rights (Geraghty)

This intensive one-credit course uses a combination of lecture and experiential learning to introduce students to human rights principles and to international and regional treaties and institutions charged with protecting and implementing those rights. The course begins with visits to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, sometimes dubbed “the judicial capital of the world”. Students and faculty then travel to Luxembourg, home of the European Court of Justice. The class ends in Strasbourg, France, where students will learn about the European Court of Human Rights and the European Parliament. The classroom component of the course will focus on the history and principles of human rights law, on human rights legal institutions that have developed over the last several decades, and on enforcement mechanisms designed to ensure compliance with human rights-based treaties.

International Sales Law (Williams)

This course focuses on the law governing the international sales of goods, with a particular emphasis on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sales of Goods (the "CISG"), to which Italy is a member. Topics including the scope of the CISG, contract formation under the CISG, buyers' and sellers' performance obligations under the CISG are compared and contrasted with corresponding approaches under British and American law. Attention is also paid to risk-of-loss issues arising in relation to the International Chamber of Commerce's commercial delivery terms ("incoterms").

Issues in International Art Law (Rhodes)

This course will explore the international legal aspects involved in the art industry. For this one credit course, the materials will focus on the acquisition and ownership of art that crosses borders. Specific questions will include commissioning works of art, acquiring works of art privately through foreign dealers or galleries, or by way of auction, and the questions of competing title that arise over works of art or cultural property proceeding from war or peace time looting.