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Required Courses

All students are required to take the below three courses. Students who attend the program in both the Fall and the Spring semester may only take the Global Practice Exercise and the Core Course in their first semester at CTLS.

Global Practice Exercise
CTLS Faculty

Each semester will begin with an intensive, multi-day exercise in transnational and/or comparative law. The exercise will provide an opportunity for the diverse students and faculty at CTLS to work together on a common legal problem. All faculty and students will participate in the exercise. The objectives are to give students and faculty a quick start working together on a real legal practice problem, which will highlight the importance and challenges of communicating across transnational legal and cultural boundaries; draw CTLS participants into active roles in their own learning and academic exchange; and introduce students to the process of tackling real-world legal problems that transcend national boundaries, learning both transnational variations in substantive law and legal processes.

1 Credit, required. Evaluation: Participation in the plenary sessions and breakout groups.

Transnational Law Colloquium and Lectures in Transnational Justice
Coordinated by Elena D’Alessandro, University of Torino (Fall 2019 only), Kent Roach, University of Toronto (Spring 2020 only) and Wallace Mlyniec, Georgetown Law

The Transnational Law Colloquium will meet weekly for presentations by leading academics and practitioners on topics of current international, transnational or comparative law interest. Each meeting will involve the presentation of a paper, brief comments, and a discussion with the author/presenter among all participants. Attendees will be the Center’s students, faculty and invited guests. Students, who will be divided up and each assigned to attend a sub-set of the colloquia, will write short responses to the papers in advance of the meeting.

The Lectures in Transnational Justice are similar to the Colloquia; however, they are more formal, have a higher profile, and are aimed at the wider CTLS community within London. There will be two lectures each semester delivered by faculty members or practitioners with significant transnational experience. Students must attend both lectures and write a short response to one of the lecture papers

1 Credit, required. Participation in seven assigned colloquia and submission of two response papers (900-1,000 words each). Participation at two lectures and submission of one response paper (900-1,000 words each).

Core Course: On the Theory and Praxis of Transnational Law (Fall 2019 only)
Arif Jamal, National University of Singapore and Sergio Dellavalle, University of Torino

The postnational constellation poses a challenge to many fields of social interaction, with law being no exception to this trend. As a result, not only the norms and the way in which they are applied have changed, but also the concepts that we use to understand the legal phenomenon. Indeed, the rise of transnational law has transformed both how law works and how it is conceived. From the point of view of the structure of the legal system, the rise of transnational law has been characterized by the transition from a unitary to a post-unitary conception of the system of law. More concretely, this means that the previously uncontested idea that each legal system should be self-reliant and hierarchical has progressively given way to an alternative understanding, according to which legal systems horizontally overlap and interact within a transnational context which is explicitly located beyond the traditional divide between the national and the international settings. The post-unitary conception of the legal system has been interpreted in different forms, each of them outlining a specific aspect of transnational law and a prescriptive preference about how it should be further improved. For some authors, for instance, transnational law is essentially the result of a growing trend to legal pluralism, while others identify in it the consolidation of legal regimes centred on the regulation of trade or on the self-regulation of the economic interactions between private agents. Others again see the main feature of transnational law in the strengthening of global governance, or in paving the way to a kind of global constitutionalism based on the universal recognition of human rights. Within the framework of transnational law, new types of conflicts arise between the distinct legal regimes, which require the development of unprecedented solutions. One of the most innovative answers to the problem consists in increasing the mutual observation or even the dialogue between the different legal systems, in general, and between courts in particular. In the latter part of the course, several of the themes raised in earlier parts will be reexamined through a consideration of selected transnational legal orders as well as forces that effect the understanding — and maybe even existence — of transnational law, especially outside of the ‘West’.

3 Credits, required. Evaluation: Class participation (10%), Class presentation of one topic discussed in the course (15%), Reaction papers to be submitted before each class from class 2 to 12 (15%), Research paper (4,000-4,500 words) (60%).

Core Course: The Practice and Theory of Transnational Law (Spring 2020 only)
Ugo Pagallo, University of Torino and Kent Roach, University of Toronto

We are increasingly unable to understand and address legal problems – even domestic legal problems – simply by focusing our attentions on the domestic legal framework.  Philip Jessup, who coined the term transnational law, defined it as “all law which regulates actions or events that transcend national frontiers . . . [including] [b]oth public and private international law . . . [and] other rules which do not wholly fit into such standard categories.” These “other rules” might be rules of domestic law, insofar as they seek to regulate persons or things beyond the state’s borders. They also include non-state-based normative regimes. We will also explore the limitations of the nation state as the primary source of law, looking at alternative and competing sources of norms such as private self-regulation, global indicators, Indigenous law, or religious law. Under this legal pluralist perspective, the state is only one,

albeit a key one, actor and source of law among many. Law and politics are increasingly transcending national borders, and in the process escaping the traditional political and constitutional protections those borders used to provide. At the same time, the nation state is pushing back making it more urgent to examine the strengths and weaknesses of increased globalism.  Methodologically, we will explore how the transnational perspective helps us understand and address issues that involve multiple actors (states, corporations, Indigenous groups, NGOs), multiple laws (national laws, international agreements, contracts, Indigenous and religious law),  multiple jurisdictions (national courts, international tribunals, supra national arbitration panels) and the advent of new technology or phenomena (internet, artificial intelligence, terrorism, increased knowledge about wrongful convictions) Substantively, we will explore this perspective at play in selected areas such as the growth and regulation of transactional artificial intelligence/digital law, global counter-terrorism, global innocence movements to prevent wrongful convictions and human rights. The course will show how effective lawyers, be they transactional lawyers, activists or regulators understand the mosaic of relevant legal materials and their role, including ethics and professional responsibility, within them.  We will discuss how this transnational perspective may help us see the role of law in structuring power relations and policy choices, pressing us to address important ethical and political questions.

3 Credits, required. Evaluation: tbc

Fall 2019 – Elective Courses

The deadline for Fall 2019 registration is Friday, 12 July 2019 (students can choose elective courses via CTLS Course Request Form- Fall questionnaire on Studio Abroad)

“Black Lives Matter” at Home and Abroad: Criminal Procedure, Policing and Race
Ekow N. Yankah, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law – Yeshiva University

The last few years in America, with its heartbreaking litany of names of unarmed black men killed by police in full public few, has placed American policing practices under intense scrutiny.  The “Black Lives Matter” movement that has arisen from those incidents, has in turn spawned related international policing protest movements. In some case, these movements draw inspiration form the American model; in other cases, they build upon longstanding protest traditions.  While most attention is understandably focused on the homicide or civil rights violations that apply to each tragic individual death, less attention is paid to the law of policing that frames and arguably perpetuates such deadly encounters and historic tension between the police and the policed.

This class will focus on American criminal procedure and the volatile intersection of policing and race relations.  The material questions the extent to which the American Supreme Court’s Fourth Amendment doctrine, which governs American policing, allows policing of persons of color in ways that would never be permitted if more widely applied.  These rulings create a legal regime in which citizens in poor neighborhoods, particularly citizens of color, are often policed by unchecked “stop and frisk” regimes.  Further, one may question whether current Fourth Amendment doctrine contributes to the disproportionate carceral harms born by African-American and Hispanic individuals, neighborhoods and racial stigmatization generally.

Further, this class will explore the forms of legal and civil protest that have arisen internationally. The class will explore the ways Black Lives Matter has been translated in different countries and circumstances as well as the unifying features in these movements.

Lastly, understanding the current legal regime is not merely a matter of surveying individual legal doctrines piecemeal.  Doctrinal discussions of the law of policing cannot be understood without a deeper inspection into the underlying philosophical.  Thus, this class brings together philosophical inspection and doctrinal examination as a single project.  Exploring the underlying philosophical theories permits richer assessment of the justifiability of the current policing regime, highlights needed critical changes and may offer lessons to be applied in broader contexts such as in analogous challenges facing Israeli policing challenges.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class preparedness and participation (20%), Research paper (4,000 words) (80%).

One-plus option:

For 1 extra credit, up to six students who need to fulfill a graduation requirement at their home university may write a major research paper. To obtain the extra credit, the student must (a) turn in a written outline of the paper for faculty comment relatively early in the semester, (b) turn in a complete first draft for faculty comment two-thirds of the way through the semester, and (c) write a paper of 6,000 words, not including footnotes.

Please note that this course has been approved as a WR course for Georgetown students.

Corporate Governance: International Perspectives
Cally Jordan, University of Melbourne

Corporate governance is the system by which publicly traded and listed companies are directed and controlled.  The modern discourse in corporate governance is inherently international, coinciding as it has with the internationalization of finance

Substantive topics covered may include theories of the corporation and their implications for corporate governance; the role of institutional shareholders; board diversity; corporate social responsibility; and dual class share structures, among others. These topics will be examined from multiple perspectives, looking at legislation, case law, corporate governance codes and international standards in  the UK, the United States, Europe and emerging markets such as Brazil and China.  In particular, the course considers the role and significance of international standards, the tensions between regulation and self-regulation, the role of market forces in corporate governance,  the effectiveness of traditional corporate governance mechanisms in emerging market economies and corporate governance country assessments under the Financial Sector Assessment Programme of the IMF and The World Bank.

Working in teams, students will be given the opportunity to make in-class presentations on selected topics in the latter part of the course.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation and class presentation (Students (working in teams) will prepare and present in-class presentations in the last three or four weeks of class on designated topics) (30%), Final take-home exam (8 hours) (70%).

International Agreements to Protect Children
Wallace Mlyniec, Georgetown Law Center

All nations believe they have a duty to protect children within its borders. Although the family law and the law regarding children are generally thought of as purely domestic concerns, some parent and child activities and some criminal enterprises involving children cross borders. As such, bilateral, regional, and multilateral treaties exist to protect children who move from nation to nation. Some agreements also attempt to control purely domestic concerns. Moreover, the general acceptance of U.N. sanctioned human rights initiatives has culminated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that has been ratified by every nation in the world except the United States.

This seminar will focus the emergence of international agreements concerning children, explore the legal and philosophical relationships between children and parents and between families and nations and consider the principal critiques made of these instruments. It will also probe the difficulties of using these instruments to protect children and enhance their well-being. Specific topics covered will be the place of children in the international order, juvenile justice systems, unfair labor practices concerning children, kidnapping and trafficking, the role of children in armed conflict, and child migrants. It will also explore advocacy on behalf of children by international human rights lawyers, nongovernmental organizations, and international bodies.

The required textbook for this course is Trevor Buck, International Child Law, 3rd edition.

2 credits. Evaluation: Attendance and class participation (20%), Research paper (4,000 words) (80%).

International Capital Markets: Law and Institutions
Cally Jordan, University of Melbourne

This subject will examine the phenomenon of the internationalization of capital markets over the last 30 years from a regulatory perspective and the role it played  in the Global Financial Crisis (2008- ).  An introductory section will look at  the Global Financial Crisis and international capital markets. The course will then proceed to place regulatory developments in context by examining the history, trends and issues associated with internationalization of the markets and the regulatory techniques that have developed in response to them.

The course will consider international financial institutions, such as The World Bank and quasi-regulatory bodies such as the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO), their role as capital raisers, standard setters and the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAPs)..

Part of the course will be devoted to specific US regulatory responses to the internationalization of capital markets:  FPI or foreign private issuer exemptions, Regulation S, Rule 144A, Mutual Recognition Systems and ADRs.

Several other different markets will be studied, regulated and unregulated, developed economies as well as developing or emerging markets, the Euromarket, London, the European Union, China, and possibly others.

The latter part of the course will focus on the changing role of exchanges and significant new areas of international finance such as Islamic finance and “green finance”.

The course will include case studies, such as the international offering of the Bolsa Mexicana and the IFFIm capital raising.

If possible, invited guest lecturers from “the City”, the financial press, regulators and exchanges will bring their real world perspectives to the course.

In the last two or three  weeks of the course, students preferably working in teams will make presentations on various topics.  The presentations will be worth 30% of the final mark.

The required textbooks for this course are C. Jordan, International Capital Markets: Law and Institutions (Oxford University Press: 2014) and Soderquist, L. & Gabaldon, T., Securities Law (Concepts and Insights), 6th ed. (New York: Foundation Press, 2018).

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (20%), Final take-home exam (8 hours) (80%).

International and European Refugee Protection
Sarah Progin-Theuerkauf, University of Fribourg

Refugee protection and asylum are one of the most pressing societal and legal topics of our times. The course will deal with the international foundations of refugee protection, especially the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees. The questions of whether other categories of persons (for example environmentally displaced persons) should be included in the Geneva Convention will also be discussed.

Furthermore, the legal instruments forming the Common European Asylum System will be analyzed, among them the highly disputed Dublin Regulation. The course will finally enquire how the future Common European Asylum Law System should look like. All along the course, a special focus will be put on the discussion of relevant case-law of the European Court of Justice.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (20%), Class presentation (20%), Final take-home exam (8 hours) (60%).

Law and Religion in Transnational Perspective
Arif Jamal, National University of Singapore

Within the widespread phenomenon of the (re)emergence of religion into issues of public debate, one of the most salient issues confronting contemporary societies is how religious considerations might, if at all, impact the formulation of legal norms and how the law may deal with issues of freedom of religion and freedom of religious expression.  In contemporary short-hand these issues are referred to under the rubric of religion in the public sphere (or public square).  Undoubtedly, the law acts as a critical regulator of these issues as well as being the site where many of these debates take place.

This course explores these issues through three focal points. First, we will examine the ideas of some major thinkers in legal and political theory who have theorised about the relationship of law and religion.  Our starting point for this will be the seminal contribution of John Rawls’s work Political Liberalism. After looking at Rawls’s theory we will turn to responses and reactions to Rawls from other prominent thinkers.

Second, we will examine ‘religio-legal’ cultures and traditions to understand how they express and represent the relationship of law and religion.

Finally, we will look at selected case studies – instance where law and religion have directly encountered each other – as points of reflection and discussion.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (10%), Class presentation (20%), Research paper (4,000 words) (70%).

Migration and Human Rights
Sarah Progin-Theuerkauf, University of Fribourg

Migrants form the most vulnerable part of our society and often have a precarious legal status. Therefore, human rights play an important role for the protection of their rights. Especially the non-refoulement principle is of extraordinary importance, but other human rights like the right to family life also have a special meaning for migrants.

The course will analyze the application of human rights to a migrant’s life cycle – from departure in the country of origin to arrival and stay in a host country and a possible return. The special situation of asylum seekers, refugees, regular and irregular migrants will be highlighted. The course will also take into account existing case-law of the European Court of Human Rights and other international instances.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (20%), Class presentation (20%), Final take-home exam (8 hours) (60%).

Paradigms of National and International Order
Sergio Dellavalle, University of Torino

No social life is possible without order. Order being the most constituent element of society, it is not surprising that so many theories have been developed to explain what social order is and how it is possible, as well as to explore the features that social order acquires in its different dimensions. This course unit presents, first, the most significant understandings of social, political and legal order that have been elaborated and established in the past. To that purpose, the vast field of the many theories of social, political and legal order is led back to a few main matrices for the use of theoretical and practical reason, which are defined as “paradigms of order”. On that basis, the plurality of conceptual constructs regarding social order is reduced to a manageable number of theoretical patterns and an intellectual map is produced in which, in an almost synoptic way, the most significant differences between paradigms are clearly outlined. Furthermore, the course unit addresses the “paradigmatic revolutions” that marked in past centuries – and are still marking in our time – the most relevant turning points in the way a “well-ordered society” is understood. Against this background, the course unit concentrates then, in a second step, on how the growing number of transactions beyond the borders of the nation states, identified by the concepts of globalization and supranational continental integration, has been addressed by political and legal theorists, with particular reference to the interpretations elaborated by the public law scholarship. In general, the challenges of the 21st century have been met by the leading public law scholarship through an extension of the domestic public law categories to the international domain, as well as through the introduction of new categories encompassing both the domestic, the supranational and the international level of public law. More specifically, the course unit presents, in the light of an in-depth analysis of many of the most influential recent contributions, how these strategies are leading to a redefinition of the traditional “paradigms of order”, or even trigger a new paradigmatic revolution in the theories of order. As a result, well-established concepts, like sovereignty, national identity and constitutionalism are reshaped, while entirely new notions – such as lex mercatoria, global governance, global administrative law, or legal pluralism – are introduced. According to the most radical interpretation, even the positive value of the Western idea of order is utterly denied.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (10%), Class presentation of two topics discussed in the course (15%), Reaction papers to be submitted before each class from class 4 to 13 (15%), Research paper (4,000-4,500 words) (60%).

One-plus option:

For 1 extra credit, up to six students who need to fulfill a graduation requirement at their home university may write a major research paper. To obtain the extra credit, the student must (a) turn in a written outline of the paper for faculty comment relatively early in the semester, (b) turn in a complete first draft for faculty comment two-thirds of the way through the semester, and (c) write a paper of 6,000 to 6,500 words, not including footnotes.

Please note that this course has been approved as a WR course for Georgetown students.

Transnational Litigation
Elena D’Alessandro, University of Torino

The course is designed for students with interests in civil and commercial law in a transnational context and covers all major aspects of the conduct of cross-border cases in national courts.

In particular, students will be introduced to the most important issues involved in the resolution of a transnational dispute, such as:

  • Advantages and disadvantages of court litigation vs. international arbitration;
  • Jurisdiction of national courts (in cross-border cases) including choice of court agreements;
  • Forum shopping;
  • Service of process abroad;
  • Impact of third-party financing on transnational litigation;
  • Obtaining evidence abroad;
  • Actual or potential relationship with other legal proceedings in the same or similar claim (e. g. forum non conveniens, anti-suit injunctions, lis alibi pendens);
  • Transnational provisional relief;
  • Recognition and enforcement of foreign countries judgments.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (30%), Research paper (4,000 words) (70%).

One-plus option:

For 1 extra credit, up to six students who need to fulfill a graduation requirement at their home university may write a major research paper. To obtain the extra credit, the student must (a) turn in a written outline of the paper for faculty comment relatively early in the semester, (b) turn in a complete first draft for faculty comment two-thirds of the way through the semester, and (c) write a paper of 6,500 words, not including footnotes.

Please note that this course has been approved as a WR course for Georgetown students.

Spring 2020 – Elective Courses

The deadline for Spring 2020 registration is Friday, 22 November 2019 (students can choose elective courses via CTLS Course Request Form- Spring questionnaire on Studio Abroad)

Corporate Taxation Law and Policy
Stephen Daly and Ann Mumford, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London

Every person and entity ought to contribute their fair share to the burden of public finances, but how exactly this comes to be in practice is a complex matter. The purpose of this course is to understand how corporations are taxed. In the UK, tax laws change from year to year. Additionally, there can be significant differences between tax systems in different countries.  This course, thus, adopts a theoretical and principles-based approach to understanding corporate taxes. For it is only when we know why we are acting the way that we are that we can understand how we ought to calibrate the tax system.  The question of how corporations are taxed is not only of fundamental importance for the economy, but also broader issues of justice.

Students by the end of this course will not only have a practical understanding of how corporations are taxed, but also a broader appreciation of the commercial, philosophical and economic issues that underpin the tax system, thereby giving them the vocabulary and knowledge necessary to understand the commercial world.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class presentation (20%), Summative essay (80%).

Diplomatic and Consular Law and Practice
Jordi Sellarés Serra, ESADE Law School

Overview of the evolution of the legal regulation of diplomatic and consular relations, from its historic origins, to the several Vienna Conventions (1961, 1963), and practice that has followed.  Reason for privileges and immunities, and their future eventual evolution. Recent cases, either from the press or from jurisprudence (International Court of Justice included), from throughout the World, will offer a wide base for discussion, where the different systems for receiving international law into national legal systems (monism & dualism) will also be discussed. Readings offered to students to prepare each session, which will be introduced with a global explanation of the main aspects of the lesson. Many sessions will be focused on studying how the practice by States opens new prospects. If possible, visits to Embassies and consulates in London will be arranged, and a movie session will be offered, with many different scenes of movies and TV series referred to diplomatic and consular issues. As evaluation, students will be required to prepare a final report on a mock case.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (20%), Visits and external activities (10%), Take-home case (70%).

Economic Analysis of Law
Yehonatan Givati, Israel Institute/Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Law and economics is one of the most influential schools of thought in modern law. The ideas propounded by the economic analysis of law are gaining increasing traction in court decisions and in legal policy. This course will examine the major contributions of law and economics in contract, tort and property, as well as in other areas of law that may not initially appear to be amenable to economic reasoning. The course will also introduce students to basic tools from economics that are useful for all lawyers, regardless of specialty. The course does not require any background in economics, and is designed to be fully accessible to all students.

2 credits. Evaluation: Attendance and class participation (20%), Final take-home exam (8 hours) (80%).

International Agreements to Protect Children
Wallace Mlyniec, Georgetown Law Center

All nations believe they have a duty to protect children within its borders. Although the family law and the law regarding children are generally thought of as purely domestic concerns, some parent and child activities and some criminal enterprises involving children cross borders. As such, bilateral, regional, and multilateral treaties exist to protect children who move from nation to nation. Some agreements also attempt to control purely domestic concerns. Moreover, the general acceptance of U.N. sanctioned human rights initiatives has culminated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that has been ratified by every nation in the world except the United States.

This seminar will focus the emergence of international agreements concerning children, explore the legal and philosophical relationships between children and parents and between families and nations and consider the principal critiques made of these instruments. It will also probe the difficulties of using these instruments to protect children and enhance their well-being. Specific topics covered will be the place of children in the international order, juvenile justice systems, unfair labor practices concerning children, kidnapping and trafficking, the role of children in armed conflict, and child migrants. It will also explore advocacy on behalf of children by international human rights lawyers, nongovernmental organizations, and international bodies.

The required textbook for this course is Trevor Buck, International Child Law, 3rd edition.

2 credits. Evaluation: Attendance and class participation (20%), Research paper (4,000 words) (80%).

International Commercial Arbitration
Jordi Sellarés Serra, ESADE Law School

Overview of the international commercial arbitration, explaining the theories about its legal nature (contract or procedure), their different types (institutional, ad hoc, between States or companies, etc.), institutions, advantages and disadvantages, court collaboration needed, procedure, laws to apply, incidents (Kompetenz/Kompetenz, IBA criteria to help in assessing arbitrators independence, discovery or not, etc.), partial and final awards, execution and recourses against the award. Readings offered to students to prepare each session, which will be introduced with a global explanation of the main aspects of the lesson. More research might be required of those awards published –most of the arbitration is confidential-, such as those available in the ICSID or Iran-US Claims Tribunal, or new cases made public by the parties. Specific attention will be paid to investment arbitration and Spain and their renewable energy cases will be used as examples. A session might be offered by staff of international arbitration institutions to know directly their personal experiences. Perhaps a visit from someone from the Secretariat of ICC International Court of Arbitration and a visit to the London Court of International Arbitration will be arranged. Students will be required to prepare a draft award in a mock case, and a sort of moot court of that case will be played by the students in the final class.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (20%), Visits and external activities (10%), Take-home case (70%).

National and Transnational Remedies for Violations of Human Rights
Kent Roach, University of Toronto

This course will examine remedies available for the violations of human rights in a number of domestic and supra national legal systems. Topics to be examined include the American experience with complex relief in school desegregation and prison reform cases; declarations of incompatibility under the UK’s Human Rights Act, 1998; the award of suspended declarations of invalidity in Canada and South Africa; remedies with respect to health care, remedies with respect to police behaviour and the award of just satisfaction damage awards and the pilot judgment procedure of the European Court of Human Rights. Transnational issues will be examined in the context of how various courts provide indirect remedies for human rights violations primarily caused by other states with specific attention to violation of rights in the national security context, including those arising from military detention at Guantanamo Bay and listing as a terrorist. The course will also explore whether there is or should be a difference between the remedial process employed in domestic and supra-national law.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (25% including 4, 1-2 page reaction papers to be emailed to instructor before 6pm the day before the seminar), Research paper (4,000 words) (75%).

One-plus option:

For 1 extra credit, a limited number of students who need to fulfill a graduation requirement at their home university may write a major research paper. To obtain the extra credit, the student must (a) turn in a written outline of the paper for faculty comment relatively early in the semester, (b) turn in a complete first draft for faculty comment two-thirds of the way through the semester, and (c) write a paper of 6,500 words, not including footnotes.

Please note that this course has been approved as a WR course for Georgetown students.

Tax Authority Powers and Taxpayer Rights
Stephen Daly, The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London

Taxes are fundamental to the sustainability of civilised society and foundational in the relationship between the citizen and the State. But hidden behind these self-evident truths is the need to actually collect the taxes prescribed by law as due. For the collection of taxes to be effected there is a need for the establishment of a public body tasked with managing compliance with the tax code. In a world without fraud or negligence, taxpayers simply give the money due to this tax authority. In the real world however tax authorities must be equipped with powers to ensure that taxes are collected. How intrusive these powers should be is a difficult question to answer. The converse question is how broad the rights of taxpayers should be. This course seeks to tease out the relationship between tax authorities and taxpayers in terms of their respective powers and rights.

2 credits. Evaluation: Class presentation (20%), Summative essay (80%).

The Law of Artificial Intelligence
Ugo Pagallo, University of Torino

The increasing role of technology in humanity raises constant major challenges to law in a variety of moral, theoretical and doctrinal dimensions. The purpose of this course is to analyze current developments in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and robotics through the prism of legal regulation and/or vice versa (analyzing legal regulation through the prism of AI and robotics). Along with discussing the interface of law and technology through a variety of critical theoretical perspectives, the course will focus on specific topics and case studies as “laboratories” for assessing contemporary approaches to law & technology. The topics to be discussed include a new generation of AI crimes, risk regulation in the fields of autonomous vehicles and data protection, up to the current debate on the legal personhood of robots and AI systems. The main objective of this course is to make students aware of the connections between technology and the legal environment and keep them up-to-date with the current discussions worldwide. It is a unique opportunity to further develop technical knowledge on state-of-the-art topics, such as machine learning, neural networks, and ‘black boxes.’

The required textbook for this course is Woodrow Barfield (ed.), Ugo Pagallo (ed.), Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence (Edward Elgar Publising, 2018).

2 credits. Evaluation: Class participation (30%), Final take-home exam (8 hours) (70%).