(1) Students whose general interests lie not only inside but also outside the United States and the American legal system, and who tentatively plan to practice law or pursue related careers in a transnational setting.

(2) Students with specific cross-border interests in business law involving, for example, international sales, or international trade, or international finance, or international transfers of technology, or  international commercial disputes.    

(3) Students interested in public international law including international human rights, whether from a theoretical perspective or as an area of legal practice in governmental or non-governmental organizations in the United States or abroad.

(4) Students who, while tending toward becoming active in areas of domestic legal practice in the United States, have interests in other countries that lead them to seek familiarity with areas of law related to the global economy. 

(5) Students who have already begun to specialize in particular substantive areas of law (such as tax, antitrust, or civil rights) and who want to begin to master their fields by approaching central issues from the vantage points of other legal systems. 
  

Core Courses

For all five groups of students, each of these five core courses, in different ways, helps students to look at fundamental aspects of law from an international perspective:

International Business Transactions is a broad-based course covering the topics specified in its title, the resolution of international commercial disputes, and other aspects of international business law.  

Comparative Law seeks to uncover both similarities and significant differences in the underlying assumptions with which different legal traditions operate in regard to legal institutions and processes, individual justice, efficiency, and modes of interpretation.

Conflict of Laws, a subject with both domestic and international applications, introduces students to fundamental problems that arise when autonomous legal systems are drawn into conflict as regards applicable substantive law, jurisdictional matters, and other issues. 

Advanced Courses

Advanced courses relating to various aspects of International and Comparative Law are grouped below in five categories.

Business Law.  Competition and International Trade.  European Community Law.  International Environmental Law.  International Finance.  International Trade Disputes. For students planning to take International Finance, one of the following courses is recommended:  Accounting for Lawyers.  Bankruptcy.  Commercial Transactions.  Corporate and Securities Law.  Corporate Finance.  Corporations.  Securities Regulation. 

Geographic Areas.  Constitutional Development in South Africa and the United States.  European Community Law.  Islamic Law and Middle East Legal Institutions.  United Nations and World Order.

Human Rights.  International Human Rights Seminar and Workshop.
For students planning to take this advanced course, one of the following courses is recommended:  Foreign Affairs, the Constitution, and International Law Perspectives.  International Law:  Selected Topics.  The Law of  War.  United Nations and World Order.

Litigation and Dispute Resolution.  Alternative Dispute Resolution.  European Community Law.  International Civil Litigation.  International Trade Disputes.  Judgments:  How to Enforce Them Domestically and Internationally.       

International and Comparative Aspects of Particular Fields.  Broadcasting Regulation in European States.  Comparative Constitutional Law:  Revolution and Constitutional Law.  Comparative Criminal Procedure.  Comparative Tax Law.  Competition and International Trade Policy.  European Copyright and Data Protection Law.  European Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law.  Human Rights in International and Constitutional Perspective.  International Environmental Law.  International Finance.  International Taxation.

For students planning to take one of these regulatory courses relating to European law, the basic course in European Community Law is recommended. For recommended courses relating to International Finance, see above under Business Law.

Scheduling Your Curriculum

To schedule your curriculum in International and Comparative Law: Business and Public Dimensions, you should feel free to consult any of Professors Lung-chu Chen, Tai-Heng Cheng, Sydney M. Cone, III, Stephen Ellmann, Faith Kahn, Rudolph Peritz, or Ruti Teitel, or obtain information from the Center for International Law.