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 Public and Private Law (LAWS08148)

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 Credits40 ECTS Credits20
SummaryThis course introduces basic concepts of public and private law - in particular concepts of contract, property, tort, public power, constitution, administration, and rights - and places them in a global context. The course also critiques how the boundaries between public and private are produced, and how the public and the private is transgressed in the context of concrete legal problems.
Course description This course considers the idea of public and private law as separate in some way from a number of different angles, situating them within a historical contextualised perspective. It seeks to problematize these categories and how they have been produced, at both a domestic and global perspective.

The course first introduces the fundamental concepts of private and public law, such as rights and remedies, before examining some of the major regimes such as contract, property, administrative and constitutional law. These are important concepts and regimes for understanding law in a global context (and in ways that are developed and applied further in the likes of Global Jurisprudence, Jurisprudence and Global Law (Hons)). It will offer further depth and breadth of knowledge about law generally, building on initial thinking from law from year 1.

The course will then examine these categories of public and private and explore how the boundaries between public and private are produced, relocated, and transgressed in the context of concrete global legal problems in the second semester. It explores whether globalization has contributed to questioning the boundaries between public and private and whether it has produced some of the rethinking and increased blurriness between regimes that seemed separated.
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 understanding of the concepts and actors of global law for practice in public and private law
  2. Demonstrate a good knowledge and understanding of legal concepts, sources, principles, procedures, and institutions from a global perspective, encompassing what is traditionally understood as public and private law while at the same time interrogating the traditional boundaries of these areas of law
  3. Demonstrate a good knowledge and understanding of the major legal theories of public and private law, including private international law, related to understanding law in a global context
  4. Demonstrate a good knowledge and understanding of the rules, principles, and doctrines of private and public law relevant to a variety of fields of legal practice, and the interrelationship between these public and private regimes from a pluralist global perspective
  5. Demonstrate a good knowledge and understanding of the historical, political, and socio-economic contexts of viewing public and private as distinct spheres, of critiques of these frameworks and of how perspectives of the private and public shift between local, state, regional and international contexts.
Reading List
There is no Global Law reader or textbook, therefore the readings will consist of excerpts (materials) from the likes of:
Horwitz M.J., The History of the Public/Private Distinction 1982 University of Pennsylvania Law Review Vol 130
Horatia Muir Watt, Lucia Bíziková, Agatha Brandão de Oliveira, and Diego P. Fernández Arroyo Global Private International Law: Adjudication without Frontiers (Edward Elgar 2023)
Cormac Mac Amhlaigh, Claudio Michelon, and Neil Walker (eds), After Public Law, Oxford Constitutional Theory (Oxford, 2013)
Cutler and Dietz (eds) The Politics of Private Transnational Governance by Contract (Routledge 2017)
Peer Zumbansen (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (CUP 2021)
Cutler AC, Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy (Cambridge University Press 2003)
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 understanding of law to complex situations in a global context, in order to provide argued conclusions to concrete legal problems (actual or hypothetical)
2. Identify accurately the issues which require to be researched, and to formulate them clearly.
3. Analyse, evaluate, and interpret primary and secondary legal sources relevant to the topic studied, including through transnational and comparative legal methods.
4. Apply knowledge and analysis to complex legal, socio-legal and ethical issues in a global legal 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.
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 the internet and e-mail appropriately for a professional environment, including specifically the ability to exchange documents electronically; and to conduct efficient searches of websites to locate relevant information.
5. Communicate information (including discussing technical and complex legal materials), ideas, advice and choices in an effective manner (appropriate to the context, whether that be to the general public or other experts, individually or with others) by: giving oral presentations which address a specific issue within a prescribed time frame; listening and questioning effectively; giving and receiving feedback and responding effectively to others; and ensuring that all communications (both oral and in writing) are relevant and appropriate.
6. Communicate in plain English, using legal terminology where appropriate.
7. Contribute effectively in group work, working collaboratively on projects as part of a team in order to reach defined goals and outputs.
8. Demonstrate an ability to address the resolution of disputes, determining where is appropriate to deploy various adversarial and non-adversarial skills.
Skills and abilities in Personal Effectiveness
1. Demonstrate an ability to organise and prioritise time and effort effectively in the performance of the student's work.
2. 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.
3. Understand the transmission of knowledge across different boundaries, including languages and cultures.
KeywordsPrivate law,public law,global law,globalisation
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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