DDRO 27A11 - Law of International Security

Law of international security is a set of rules regulating the maintenance and restoration of international peace and security. The aim of the course is to provide a solid overview of this legal framework within which States and other actors exercise their policies, adopt decisions and form mutual relations on the international scene. The objective is thus twofold: to get familiarized with the international legal norms and to apply them to concrete cases in the world politics. The knowledge of the legal pillars facilitates the analysis of international security issues.

The course will shed light both on the centralized international and decentralized regional levels of collective security mechanisms. If the central point is the United Nations Security Council powers – organ vested with the primary responsibility for the protection of international peace and security – its relations of subsidiarity and complementarity with regional organizations will complete the general picture of the security scene. Besides the prerogatives of the United Nations, the role of the NATO, EU, OSCE, African Union, ECOWAS or OAS will be studied. Divers measures aimed at the protection of international security, both involving and not involving the use of force, will be the subject of our interest. The use of economic embargoes, targeted sanctions, interruption of diplomatic relations and, finally, the recourse to military force will illustrate the great and evolving mosaic of possible intervention means as well as their limits. The new threats and challenges to international peace and security we face in the 21 st century, and the diversification and proliferation of preventive and reactive measures, necessarily lead to the reappraisal of the legal norms governing this sphere.

Pedagogical objectives :

1°) Understand both fundamental and specific international legal norms governing the domain of International Security.

2°) Acquire the skills to argue in law with regard to diverse issues such as military interventions, right of a State to self-defence, blacklisting, counter-terrorist policy, cyberattacks, sanctions, humanitarian intervention, nuclear threats etc. Apply international legal norms to particular world affairs and conflicts.

3°) Develop the capacity to formulate legal arguments and the logical and critical legal thinking and understand the interaction between international law and politics.

Format of the course:

interactive course, combination of learning of legal matter and its application

discussion in class, interpretation of legal documents, legal argumentation and defense

working groups – presentation of international conflicts, comprehensive legal analysis

1°) MCQ quiz

2°) Working Group presentation

3°) final exam

4°) active participation in class (incl. class exercices)