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The seminar module offers a more extensive and more thorough analysis of a topic from within political science. To this end, the seminar module provides an overview and a critical discussion of the literature and the issues relevant for the topic of the seminar.
This special course is open for both students of Political Science and students of Law. The purpose of it is to study the interplay between international politics and international law in the fields of human rights, international humanitarian law (including the International Criminal Court) and the use of force. The idea of the course is, furthermore, that the integration of international politics and international law can be stimulated by bringing together teachers as well as students from the two departments.
The first part of the course will contain an introduction to international law, humanitarian law, human rights, and theories of international politics (especially the "international-society approach"). In the second part of the course, we will take a closer look at a number of issues on which there is a dynamic interplay between international politics and international law including human rights. These issues include the International Criminal Court (ICC), humanitarian intervention and human rights diplomacy. We also plan to study a number of relevant cases including the international response to the atrocities in the Sudanese province of Darfur since 2003 and the attempt by the Libyan authorities to crush down the popular uprising in the spring of 2011. In both cases, the international response has included a humanitarian intervention - although in very different ways - and a referral of the situation to the ICC.
Apart from the interplay between international politics and international law these cases have some central aspects in common, namely (1) a specific set of relevant rules of law (2) a struggle over international legitimacy, and (3) a set of political problems and challenges which have to do with the specific cases as well as some general political dilemmas such as order vs. justice, diplomacy vs. intervention, the relationship between states and international organizations, and, finally, the question of how to promote human rights most effectively. Therefore the course will also pay attention to the UN and Third World perspectives on international order and justice.
Knowledge about these sets of rules, processes and problems as well as the ability to analyse them academically is what this course seeks to pass on to the participants - and to test at the end of the semester.
International Relations
Of the nine seminars the student has to pass as part of the MA degree, at least six seminar modules have to be in political science
Tonny Brems Knudsen and Sten Schaumburg-Müller
The assessment method is home assignment or oral exam based on an essay.
External examiner/Graded marking.
The seminar module requires active participation of students. At the beginning of the seminar module the lecturer and the students agree on specific "activity requirements" that the students have to fulfill.
The class will consist of 35 students, 15 from Political Science and 20 from Law. The lessons will be divided between brief lectures, student presentations and, first of all, discussions. Attention will be given to the writing of papers, although this is not the only form of examination. In order to promote the combination of law and politics, both teachers will be present in most of the lessons.
The module compendium consists of about 1,200 pages.
Concerning the home assignment the student agrees with the lecturer the reading which is relevant for the research question of the home assignment. The reading forms part of the 1,200 pages which students have to read for each seminar module.
The book by Forsythe can be bought in the departmental bookshops; the rest of the literature will be made accessible by links or as a compendium.
Ayoob, Mohammed (2004), "Third World Perspectives on Humanitarian Intervention and International Administration", Global Governance , Vol. 10, 2004, pp. 99-118,
Badescu, Christina G. & Linnea Bergholm (2009), "The Responsibility to Protect and the Conflict in Darfur: The Big Let-Down", Security Dialogue , Vol. 40, No. 3, 2009, pp. 287-309,
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society. A Study of Order in World Politics , London: Macmillan, 1977 el. 1995 (selections).
David Forsythe, Human Rights in International Relations , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000 (basic book).
International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001), The Responsibility to Protect , Ottawa: IDRC, pp. 1-18, 29-45, 47-55.
Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant: Human Conduct in a World of States . Oxford University Press, 2000 (selections).
Kioko, Ben (2003), "The Right of Intervention under the African Union's Constitutive Act", International Review of the Red Cross , Vol 85, No. 852, pp. 807-825.
Peter Malanczuk,, Akehurst's Modern Introduction to International Law , 7 th ed., London: Routledge, 1997 (selections).
Lauren, Paul G. (2007), "To Preserve and Build on its Achievements and to Redress its Shortcomings: The Journey from the Commission on Human Rights to the Human Rights Council", Human Rights Quarterly , Vol. 29, 2007, pp. 307-345.
Roberts, Adam and Richard Guelff, Documents on the Laws of War , Third Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 (pp. 1-46).
Marc Weller, "Undoing the Global Constitution: UN Security Council action on the ICC", International Affairs , Vol. 78, No. 4, 2002, s. 693-712.
Wheeler, Nicholas J. (2000), Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention in International Society , Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 33-52.
