Idriss Fofana
Fall 2024-Spring 2025
1 Credit
This writing group focuses on non-western legal traditions in historical or contemporary perspective. Non-western here includes legal systems strongly influenced by traditions other than the common law and the civil law. …
Idriss Fofana
Spring 2025
4 Credits
This is an introductory course to international law, with a focus on public international law. The first part of the course examines the nature, sources, and methods of international law. Topics covered include the doctrine of sources, international responsibility, the resolution of international disputes, subjects of international law, international institutions, and the interaction between domestic and international law. …
Idriss Fofana
Fall 2024
3 Credits
This course explores the evolution and historical roots of the present-day international legal system from a global perspective. We will trace intellectual trends, institutional developments, and historical conflicts or oppositions that shaped relations between political communities from 1450 C.E. to the 1970s. The objective is to gain insight into why certain foundational aspects of today’s international law, such as the doctrine of sources, the subjects of international law, and self-determination, have assumed their current form. …
Mark Wu
Spring 2025; Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
1 credit
William P. Alford
Fall 2024 – Spring 2025; Fall 2023 – Spring 2024; Fall 2022 – Spring 2023
1 credit
Students interested in this writing group are encouraged to inform Professor Alford of their interest at their earliest convenience (ideally, in advance of the October deadline) so as to facilitate planning. …
Mark Wu
Fall 2023
4 credits
This course examines the laws underlying U.S. policymaking for trade. It explores the different means through which the U.S. has attempted to use trade agreements as well as unilateral measures to advance its economic and geostrategic interests. How is policy crafted among the different agencies and branches within the U.S. government? How have digital technology, offshoring, the rise of China, and the impasse in multilateral negotiations impacted U.S. interests and strategy? Among the topics to be explored are: delegation of powers; national security reviews; preference programs for developing countries; recent free trade agreements (TPP and USMCA); export controls; and adjustment assistance for workers displaced by trade. Particular emphasis will be placed on comparing the Trump Administration’s policies with those of its recent predecessors. …
William P. Alford, Mark Wu
Fall 2022
2 credits
The re-emergence of Asia is posing conceptual and practical challenges to understandings of and frameworks for global order that were ascendant throughout the latter half of the 20th century. This workshop will examine the content of those challenges and what that suggests about the prospects for global order in the 21st century. Within Asia, the workshop is likely to focus principally on East and South Asia. …
J. Mark Ramseyer
Winter 2025; Fall 2023; Fall 2022; Fall 2021
3 credits
This course is designed to introduce the non-specialist law student to major features of the Japanese legal system. The course attempts to integrate the structures, processes, and personnel of the Japanese legal system with other features of Japanese society and history. Topics covered include (but are not limited to): Litigation and extra-judicial settlement, the legal services industry, economic regulation, criminal procedure, and constitutional litigation. …
William P. Alford
Fall 2023; Fall 2022; Fall 2021
1 credit
This one unit course will examine the role that China has been playing in a world order in flux. We will consider, inter alia, China’s engagement of existing global norms, ways in which China may (or may not) now or in the foreseeable future be shaping such norms, and their impact on China. In the course of so doing, we will also address the manner of US engagement with such norms. …
Mark Wu
Spring 2025; Spring 2024; Fall 2022
4 Credits
This course focuses on the law governing international trade as established by the World Trade Organization. It engages in an in-depth analysis of WTO rules and case law. The class will examine the strengths and weaknesses of the existing regime and discuss the difficulties in reforming the system. Besides focusing on the basic principles governing trade in goods and services, the course will also examine specialized areas such as technical standards, agriculture, food safety, subsidies, trade remedy measures, and intellectual property. In addition, the course will focus on the geopolitical tensions between major trading powers as well as on the new issues being addressed through regional trade agreements. …
