BMET 22A52 - Doctrines of International Legal Argumentation

International Law, as an argumentative practice, derives its validity from the repeated invocation of key doctrines and beliefs in its service. This course critically examines how a few of these doctrines are deployed in the daily operation of international law, highlighting both their persuasive force and their inherent contestability. By interrogating these doctrines, participants will develop a deeper, more suspicious engagement with how arguments are built, justified, and challenged within this field (and beyond). The course encourages participants to treat every doctrine with both familiarity and suspicion, fostering the skills necessary for engagement with international legal argument and its various manifestations. To this end, the first half of every session will be dedicated to the exploration of the doctrines in contained abstraction, while the second half would be dedicated to a study of their invocations and deployments in the form of legal instruments such as international judicial pronouncements, treaties, state memos, etc. – based on contemporary relevance and selected in consultation with students.

At the end of the course, the student is expected to:

• Identify the doctrines of legal argumentation at play in the international legal order.
• Deploy the doctrines so identified in their engagement with legal instruments.
• Develop familiarity with the techniques of interpretation used to engage with and decipher legal instruments such as judicial pronouncements, general treaties, constitutive treaties, UNGA resolutions, state memos, etc.

To validate the course, the student is expected to pass the following assignments:

• 10% - Class participation, assessed throughout the duration of the course.
• 40% - Students will be required to, in groups (of 4), briefly present their reaction to the principal readings of the sessions (Sessions 4 – 11) and then connect the doctrines captured in the readings to their deployment in contemporary legal instruments.
• 50% - Students will write a critical essay (2000 words) engaging with the doctrines and instruments discussed in class. The aim is to deploy the legal argumentation techniques acquired during the course to deconstruct a selected legal instrument (or a constellation of instruments) through the lens of the doctrines. Students must demonstrate not only an understanding of the doctrines (e.g., Progress, Sovereignty, Aesthetics) but also the ability to identify how they are strategically deployed within legal instruments to generate authority. Detailed guidelines will be provided during Session 1 to enable students to flesh out their research throughout the semester; ongoing consultation with the instructor throughout the course of the semester regarding the essay’s framing is highly encouraged.