THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Law : Law

Undergraduate Course: Global Legal Systems (LAWS08147)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Law CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 8 (Year 2 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course introduces students to different legal regimes around the world, such as common and civil law, customary laws, and transnational private regulation, using 'spaces' to understand the overlapping and interacting legal regimes in context. This deepens students' ability to understand and appreciate the interaction of legal systems around the globe.
Course description The course introduces students to a set of themes central to the Global Law programme. It uses 'spaces' as the anchor point to understand the interaction of global legal systems. The course allows students the opportunity to explore the history of common and civil law as systems and think through how law, colonialism, commerce and slavery structured and constituted one another. Other regimes are explored such as (but not limited to) religious law, Indigenous laws and transnational private regulation. The course discusses the historical context and practices by which different regimes spread around the world, including exploring the colonial context and the ethical role of global lawyers as professionals who may transplant, compare, and codify knowledge in the careers. Students will learn about different approaches to law and how law contributes to the emergence of global structures for political, economic, and social life. The course will deepen students' understanding of legal pluralism, transplants and comparison and offer them the opportunity to think reflexively about the role of lawyers in participating in these practices.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. demonstrate a good knowledge and awareness of legal rules, principles, and doctrines relevant to a variety of fields of legal practice belonging to different legal systems and an appreciation of the interrelationship between these legal systems from a pluralist perspective
  2. demonstrate a good knowledge and awareness of what is meant to have a pluralist understanding of law in a global context.
  3. demonstrate a good knowledge and awareness of the historical, political, cultural, and socio-economic frameworks, as well as the complex and dynamic nature of these, in which legal rules in a global context operate.
  4. demonstrate a good knowledge and awareness of diverse legal regimes such as civil, common, customary and religious law, and understand comparative methods.
  5. demonstrate a good knowledge and awareness of the role of legal professionals in working with and understanding law across different contexts.
Reading List
There is no reader or textbook that is inclusive and touches on the major themes of the programme, therefore the readings will consist of excerpts (materials) from the likes of:

Introduction Rene David Major legal systems in the world today : an introduction to the comparative study of law /; [translated and adapted by] John E.C. Brierley (Free Press, 1978)
Merry, Sally Engle. Law and Colonialism. Law & Society Review, vol. 25, no. 4, 1991
P. Glenn Legal Traditions of the World (OUP 2014)
Each week will have specific readings. These will be outlined in the course document.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Skills and abilities in Research and Enquiry
1. Apply knowledge and analysis to complex legal, socio-legal and ethical issues in a global legal context.
2. Identify accurately the issues which require to be researched, and to formulate them clearly.
3. Identify, retrieve and use relevant and appropriately up-to-date legal information using paper and electronic sources by using sources that are up-to-date from relevant paper and electronic repositories; using sources that are appropriate to the context.

Skills and abilities in Personal and Intellectual Autonomy
1. Act independently in planning and undertaking tasks in areas of law which he or she is studying or has already studied and be able to work to deadlines.
2. Undertake independent research in areas of law which he or she has not previously studied starting from legal sources (both paper-based and electronic) without reference to a reading list.
3. Reflect on his or her own learning, and to seek and make use of feedback.
4. Work collaboratively in groups to test, modify, and strengthen his or her individual views.
5. Think critically about law and its place in global society.
6. Develop a curiosity for learning and a passion to engage globally and locally.

Graduate Attributes: Skills and abilities in Communication
1. Understand and use the English language proficiently in relation to legal matters, systematically structure academic writing, express views and ideas succinctly, pursue an argument with proper care and attention to academic literature and with proper recognition of counter-arguments.
2. Present knowledge or an argument in a way which is comprehensible to its intended audience, directed to the concerns of that audience (both orally and in writing)
3. Read and discuss legal materials which are written in technical and complex language.
4. Use language proficiently in relation to legal matters and specifically to use appropriate legal terminology in work, adopting recognised methods of citation and reference.

Skills and abilities in Personal Effectiveness
1. Work effectively with others in groups, contributing, understanding, and valuing diverse experiences, skills, and thinking of each group member.
2. Display an informed knowledge and understanding of the social, historical, economic, moral and ethical contexts in which law operates at a global level, including its colonial legacies, and how law responds to these social, historical, economic, moral and ethical contexts by displaying legal knowledge in association with related policy, underlying social conditions, professional ethical issues and moral issues; and to respond to changes in law that arise from these contexts (for example by being able to remain up to date in considering primary and secondary material).
3. Demonstrate an ability to organise and prioritise time and effort effectively in the performance of the student's work.
4. Have the confidence to make informed decisions based on their knowledge and understanding and their personal and intellectual autonomy, reflecting on their roles as knowledge seekers and producers, and how this is relevant throughout their professional lives.
5. Understand the transmission of knowledge across different boundaries, including languages and cultures.

Technical/practical skills
1. Produce a word-processed essay or other text and to present such work in an appropriate form.
2. Use a library for the recovery of information, and related research skills, including the ability to discriminate between and evaluate different sources of information.
3. Reference primary and secondary sources following recognised academic and professional standards.
KeywordsLegal systems,global law,inter-systemic thinking,colonialism,spaces of law
Contacts
Course organiserDr Gail Lythgoe
Tel:
Email: Gail.Lythgoe@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMr Ryan McGuire
Tel: (0131 6)50 2386
Email: Ryan.Mcguire@ed.ac.uk
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