How Is the Teaching Organised?

For each course there will be a 1-hour tutorial (where your essay will form the basis of the discussion). You will usually be asked to write a short essay for each of these tutorials. Your work will be individually assessed and marked and feedback will be given on a week-by-week basis. Your final term grade will be awarded on the basis of both the quality of your written work and how well you have engaged in tutorial and seminar discussions with your tutors. Hence both written and verbal skills are developed and evaluated during the course.

What courses can I take?

Civil Rights:

This course will engage in a theoretical and comparative analysis of Civil Rights where the students will consider theory topics such as;

  • Do Natural Rights exist?
  • What is the relationship if any between a duty and a right?

And engage in comparative analysis such as;

  • Comparison of UN Declaration of Human Rights with The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam.
  • Comparison of the Right to Privacy in the US and European contexts, with particular reference to abortion.
  • Comparison of Freedom of Expression between US and EU jurisdictions

Law and Liberty:

This course will consider the nature of individual liberty/autonomy and the relationship that has with the law. We will examine the well-established concepts of positive and negative liberty along with Republican Freedom. The course will consider whether law is restrictive of freedom or creative of it. We will consider cases where the courts have put limits on an individual’s autonomy and the justifications for same. Relevant legal cases will be given careful consideration such as R v Brown.

Theory of Criminal Law:

The course will consider fundamental concepts germane to criminal culpability such as;

  • The ingredients of blameworthiness
  • What does it mean to be Responsible?
  • The Harm Principle
  • Wrongdoing
  • Public and private wrongs
  • Comparing criminal concepts of fault between UK and Germany
  • The Wrongness Requirement
  • Justifying Punishment?

Legal Philosophy:

Students taking this course will consider the deeper philosophical questions such as - What is law? What is the nature of authority? Does the law have authority? If so, in what way? Do we have a moral obligation to obey the law? Are there any principled limits on the reach of law? Along with considering aspects such as; the natural law tradition, positivism, the rule of law and the enforcement of morality.

Advice on written work to be submitted

Please submit your best piece of writing where you have argued for a particular proposition.

Tutors and Lecturers

Dr David Campbell, Dean, Fellow and Tutor in Law