LL437E      Half Unit
International Criminal Law

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Prof Stephen Humphreys

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.

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.

Requisites

Additional requisites:

Some background in public international law is helpful for this course. If an introduction or refresher is needed, a standard textbook such as Malcolm Shaw's International Law is recommended.

Course content

The course looks at the history of and background to international criminal law and at its substantive content—its origins in the early Twentieth Century, its purported objectives, and the core crimes set out in the Rome Statute over which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction (war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide). The course will then examine in more detail a number of areas of contemporary interest (from among the following: aggression, universal jurisdiction, immunity, torture, terrorism, international tribunals). The course is mainly directed at the conceptual problems associated with the prosecution of war criminals and, more broadly, legalised retribution.

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

Darryl Robinson, Sergey Vasiliev, Elies van Sliedregt, Valerie Oosterveld, An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge), 5th edition (2024)

Indicative reading

Gary Bass, Stay the Hand of Vengeance. The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton, 2000); Judith Shklar, Legalism (Harvard, 1964); Mark Osiel, Mass Atrocity, Collective Memory & the Law (Transaction Publishers, 1997); T McCormack & G Simpson, The Law of War Crimes (Kluwer 1997); W Schabas, The International Criminal Court (Cambridge, 2001); H Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (Penguin, 1997); Simpson, Law, War and Crime, Polity (2007).

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
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Personal development skills

  • Communication
  • Specialist skills