Spring 2023

Course

International Business Law

Mark Wu
Fall 2024; Spring 2023
3 Credits
This course aims to provide students with a broad overview of the problems that confront businesses as they go global and how different forms of law work to address such problems. Through a series of examples, the class will explore the legal and policy implications that arise out of cross-border transactions. How do businesses navigate markets that operate very differently than their own home market? We explore how treaties, national laws, and informal norms shape and constrain business decisions. Among the topics to be explored are how businesses deal with issues such as corporate social responsibility, intellectual property protection, corruption, privacy, and enforcement of arbitration awards. This class will focus, in particular, on transactions with Asia, but will draw on examples from other regions as well. …

Course

Comparative Law: Why Law? The Experience of China

William P. Alford
Spring 2025; Spring 2024; Spring 2023; Spring 2022
4 credits
This course uses the example of China as a springboard for asking fundamental questions about the nature of law, and the ways in which it may (or may not) differ in different societies. Historically, China is said to have developed one of the world’s great civilizations while according law a far less prominent role than in virtually any other. This course will test that assertion by commencing with an examination of classic Chinese thinking about the role of law in a well-ordered society and a consideration of the nature of legal institutions, formal and informal, in pre-20th century China-all in a richly comparative setting. It will then examine the history of Sino-Western interaction through law, intriguing and important both in itself and for the broader inquiry into which it opens concerning the transmission of ideas of law cross culturally. …

Course

Comparative Constitutional Law

Tarunabh Khaitan (Visiting Professor)
Fall 2024; Spring 2023
2 credits
This course is a study of constitutional law and politics from a comparative perspective. It has three features that make it distinctive from, and supplementary to, more traditional courses on constitutional law: first, it examines comparative constitutional law primarily through the lens of plurinational and deeply divided societies. One supposed function of constitutions is to enshrine the priority of political and legal mechanisms over violence for resolving societal disputes. A focus on deeply divided societies will allow us to examine this function closely. We will, therefore, draw our examples not only from constitutionally influential jurisdictions (such as United States, United Kingdom and Germany), but also from constitutions of plurinational or deeply divided societies (such as South Africa, Israel, and India). The course may also include material from jurisdictions firmly outside the ‘canon’ of comparative constitutional law, such as China, Iran, Australia, Thailand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, Afghanistan, and the Netherlands. …

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