Level: 200 level. Read more information on levels in our FAQs

Fees:  Please see Fees and payments

Lectures: 36 hours 

Classes: 18 hours

Assessment*: One examination and one essay

Typical credit**: 3-4 credits (US) 7.5 ECTS points (EU)

*Assessment is optional

**You will need to check with your home institution

For more information on exams and credit, read Teaching and assessment

An introductory course in a social science subject (for example: law, history, sociology, politics, international relations, economics), philosophy, or a related discipline.

Comparative human and constitutional rights: structure and methodology

The course begins with an introduction to the structure and basic doctrines of human and constitutional rights law and the nature and methodology of comparative law.

Topics

We will then study a range of important and controversial issues in human and constitutional rights law:

• Abortion
• Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide
• Sexual Freedom and Sexual Morality
• Same-Sex Marriage
• Religion in the Public Sphere: Muslim Dress, Crucifixes, and the Ten Commandments
• Hate Speech
• Obscenity and Blasphemy
• Socio-Economic Rights
• Terrorism and Human Rights
• Life Imprisonment
• Gender Identity

Methodology

These topics are approached by studying and comparing judgments from various highly respected courts all over the world, including 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 courts’ decisions serve as a springboard for a critical discussion of the respective rights issue.

The goals of the course are, first, to introduce the students to the jurisprudence of the above-mentioned powerful and influential courts, and, second, to develop the students’ skills to critically analyse and construct arguments about difficult and controversial human and constitutional rights questions.

LSE’s Law Department is one of the world’s best. In the UK, it was ranked first for research outputs in the most recent Research Excellence Framework (REF) and in the top 5 law departments overall by The Complete University Guide in 2018. In the 2017 QS World University rankings, the Department was ranked seventh (out of 200 departments worldwide).

Many important subjects were first taught and examined systematically from an academic perspective in LSE’s Department of Law. We pioneered the study of banking law, taxation law, civil litigation, company law, labour law, family law, aspects of welfare law, and studies of the legal system and the legal profession, and continue to be the leading thinkers in our field.

On this three-week intensive programme, you will engage with and learn from full-time lecturers from the LSE’s law faculty.

Dr Kai Möller is an Associate Professor of Law in the Department of Law. Before joining the LSE in 2009, he was a Junior Research Fellow and previously a Lecturer in Jurisprudence at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. He holds M.Jur., M.Phil. and D.Phil. degrees from Oxford and a PhD in law from Freiburg University. His research is in the areas of comparative human and constitutional rights law, constitutional theory, and legal and political theory. His book The Global Model of Constitutional Rights was published by Oxford University Press in 2012 (paperback edition 2015). He was awarded the LSE Law Teaching Prize, and in 2014 he was shortlisted for the UK Law Teacher of the Year award. 

Dr Sarah Trotter is an Assistant Professor of Law in the Department of Law. Her research is about how particular categories (like ‘the child’ and ‘the individual’) are constructed in law and about the assumptions that are made in European human rights law and domestic law about relationships. She holds degrees from the LSE (LLB, PhD) and the University of Cambridge (LLM).

Essential readings

This course is mainly case-based; most of our work will consist of a critical engagement with judgments of constitutional and human rights courts all over the world. For every lecture, a course pack containing shortened versions of the relevant judgments will be made available to the students via the Moodle website for this course. Furthermore, additional readings will be set in support of lectures and as preparatory reading for the classes.

Reference book (it will not be necessary to purchase this book)

Jackson and Tushnet, Comparative Constitutional Law (3^rd edition, 2014)

*A more detailed reading list will be supplied prior to the start of the programme

**Course content, faculty and dates may be subject to change without prior notice