Curriculum Guide · Courses

Professor Knop

J.D. Seminar 636 (cross-listed) | 3 credit hours

Statehood has long been the central organizing idea in the international legal system. Although this system accommodates the individual, it does not readily include groups of individuals. This course addresses how international law has recognized and currently recognizes peoples and minorities, including colonial peoples, indigenous peoples, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, and newer minorities formed through migration.

The course looks at the rights of these groups under contemporary international and regional human rights instruments. More broadly, whereas the definition of the sovereign state in international law traditionally revolves around the fact of effective control, the course examines the ways in which peoples and minorities complicate this account of statehood, notably through the principle of self-determination of peoples, rules for the recognition of new states, and forms of post-conflict state-building.

Strongly recommended: International Law I or Public International Law.

This seminar requires a paper. J.D. students must register for the 3 credit section of the seminar if they wish to write a paper fulfilling the Upperclass Legal Writing Requirement. The paper requirements of the 2 credit section will not fulfill the J.D. Upperclass Legal Writing Requirement.