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: 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
- Communication
- Specialist skills