LL409E      Half Unit
Comparative Human and Constitutional Rights

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Prof Kai Moller

Availability

This course is available on the Executive Master of Laws (ELLM). This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes.

Available to Executive LLM students only. This course will be offered on the Executive LLM during the four year degree period. The Law School will not offer all Executive LLM courses every year, although some of the more popular courses may be offered in each year, or more than once each year. Please note that whilst it is the Law School's intention to offer all Executive LLM courses, its ability to do so will depend on the availability of the staff member in question. For more information please refer to the Law School website.

Course content

This course examines a range of controversial issues in human and constitutional rights law from a comparative perspective. These issues include: negative and positive obligations and social rights; abortion; sexual freedom; same-sex marriage; religion in the public sphere; hate speech and genocide denial; obscenity, indecency, and blasphemy. We will approach them by comparing and contrasting judgments from courts all over the world, with a certain emphasis on cases from the U.S. Supreme Court, the Canadian Supreme Court, the South African Constitutional Court, the European Court of Human Rights, the U.K. Supreme Court, and the German Federal Constitutional Court. The goals of the course are, first, to introduce the students to the jurisprudence of those extremely powerful and influential courts, and, second, to invite them to think about and critically analyse some of the most controversial, difficult, and important rights issues of our time from a comparative perspective. 

Teaching

24-26 hours of contact time.

Formative assessment

Students will have the option of producing a formative exam question of 2000 words to be delivered one month from the end of the module’s teaching session by email.

 

Indicative reading

The course is mainly case-based. Students will be provided with course packs including shortened versions of the relevant judgments via the Moodle page for this course.

Assessment

Assessment Pathway 1

Essay (100%, 8000 words)

Assessment Pathway 2

Legal problems (100%)


Key facts

Department: LSE Law School

Course Study Period: Autumn Term

Unit value: Half unit

FHEQ Level: Level 7

CEFR Level: Null

Total students 2024/25: Unavailable

Average class size 2024/25: Unavailable

Controlled access 2024/25: No
Guidelines for interpreting course guide information

Course 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

  • Communication
  • Specialist skills