IR471 Half Unit
Critical International Law
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Prof Jens Meierhenrich
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in Gender (Rights and Human Rights), MSc in Gender, Peace and Security, MSc in International Affairs (LSE and Peking University), MSc in International Relations, MSc in International Relations (LSE and Sciences Po), MSc in International Relations (Research) and MSc in Theory and History of International Relations. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
How to apply: All students must include a brief written statement of no more than 200 words explaining why they wish to take the course and how it will benefit their academic/career goals.
Places on capped courses cannot be guaranteed.
Deadline for application: The deadline for applications is 12:00 noon on Friday 26 September 2025.
You can expect to be informed of the outcome of your application by 12:00 noon on Monday 29 September 2025.
For questions about the academic content of a Department of International Relations course, students should contact the teacher responsible as listed in the hyperlinked course guide.
For questions about your programme regulations, please contact your programme convenor/director or your Academic Mentor.
For questions about the process of applying to a Department of International Relations course, if not already clear from the information provided, please contact ir.msc@lse.ac.uk.
Students are advised to check the MSc Course Availability Spreadsheet.xlsx for information on the remaining availability of EU4, DV4, GV4, IR4, PP4 and SO4 courses after 12:00 noon Monday 29 September.
All students are required to obtain permission from the Teacher Responsible by completing the online application form linked to course selection on LSE for You. Admission is not guaranteed.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically high.
Course content
This taught graduate seminar introduces students to the theory and history of international accountability. Focusing on justice mechanisms from the Nuremberg, Tokyo, and Eichmann trials to the Waitangi Tribunal and international commissions of inquiry, and from the UN ad hoc tribunals to—especially—the International Criminal Court, the course inquires deeply into the violence of international law. Bringing critical international theory to bear, it blends methodological approaches from law, the social sciences and the humanities. By thinking critically about international law, the seminar raises––and answers––pertinent theoretical and empirical questions about the power—and pathologies—of international organizations. Paying special attention to the ICC’s ongoing investigations and prosecutions––its so-called Situations––the course exemplifies the politics of international law in the context of one of the most embattled international organizations in the international system.
Teaching
20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
Formative assessment
Students are required to research and write one formative essay (1,000 words) due in Week 7 of Autumn Term. Essays must be fully - and carefully - referenced using one of the major conventions consistently.
Indicative reading
Andrea Bianchi, International Law Theories: An Inquiry into Different Ways of Thinking (2016).
Clarke, Kamari Maxine, Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist Pushback (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019).
Richard Devetak, Critical International Theory: An Intellectual History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Alexander Laban Hinton, The Justice Facade: Trials of Transition in Cambodia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
Martti Koskenniemi, To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power 1300–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Jens Meierhenrich and Oliver Simons, eds., The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Anne Orford, International Law and the Politics of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Kim Christian Priemel, The Betrayal: The Nuremberg Trials and German Divergence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).
Judith Shklar, Legalism: Law, Morals, and Political Trials (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1964).
Benjamin N. Schiff, Building the International Criminal Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Prabhakar Singh and Benoît Mayer, eds., Critical International Law: Postrealism, Postcolonialism, and Transnationalism (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014).
Assessment
Essay (100%, 4000 words) in January
Essay of 4000 words (100%)) in the January assessment period. Essays must be fully - and carefully - referenced using one of the major conventions consistently.
Key facts
Department: International Relations
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: 29
Average class size 2024/25: 15
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.
Personal development skills
- Leadership
- Self-management
- Team working
- Problem solving
- Application of information skills
- Communication