The course, taught by practitioners in the field, covers contemporary and cutting-edge aviation topics such as international commercial aviation, aviation security, and the integration of unmanned aircraft systems (i.e., drones) into the national airspace. The course material will encompass most aspects of aviation law, including the law of international civil aviation, the economic and safety regulation of air transportation, aircraft registration and certification, aircraft accidents, airport law, government immunity from tort liability, and airline liability for the carriage of passengers and cargo domestically and internationally under the Montreal Convention. Students are exposed to a range of materials, including cases, treaties, executive agreements, and regulations, with a view towards imparting practical skills that can be applied to any field of law.

This seminar deals with the distribution of powers between the president and Congress in the areas of war, diplomacy, international organizations, foreign assistance, commerce, money, etc. as well as the distribution of powers between the national and state governments. Such related matters as the impact on individual rights and the political question doctrine in this context are also discussed.

Slavery has been a phenomenon that has existed since before written history, yet it is only in the last 200 years that efforts to abolish it have gained traction. Today, increasing mobility, global supply chains, and continued social discrimination have created the environment for ongoing human exploitation, even though the formal practice of chattel slavery, or the legal ownership of one human being by another, is illegal virtually everywhere. Indeed, some estimate that there are more slaves today than at any other time in human history. Most recently, efforts to eliminate severe forms of human exploitation are being made under the banner of ending human trafficking (or more formally, trafficking in persons).

This course will provide students an overview of the multiple legal perspectives on combating human trafficking and modern slavery. This will include the definitional tensions between different perspectives, alternative approaches to addressing severe human exploitation, and an overview of the current U.S. legal framework for eradicating human trafficking and modern slavery and its weaknesses. Attention will be paid to commonly recognized principles in human rights, criminal and labor law, but also in such areas as corporate responsibility and immigration law. The class will use a range of materials, including international treaties, decisions of international and foreign tribunals, and more familiar U.S. statutory materials and legislative history (such as committee reports).

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of the class, students should be able to

• recognize many of the forms of and pervasive nature of human trafficking and modern slavery;
• identify risks of human trafficking and modern slavery in most areas of practice they may choose in the future; and
• have familiarity with emerging issues in the area of human trafficking and modern slavery.

The attempted extradition of Gen. Pinochet from the U.K. to Spain to account for torture and disappearances in Chile, a tragic car accident in Washington, D.C. in which a sixteen year old is killed by a Georgian diplomat, the alleged expropriation of your corporate client’s investment interests by a foreign government, a civil lawsuit against President Mugabe of Zimbabwe during a visit to the U.S., a criminal case in Chicago against a foreign consular officer for aiding and abetting a fugitive -- such cases bring into sharp relief the operation of international immunities. This two-credit course aims to introduce students to the range of jurisdictional immunities recognized by international law and how they are implemented in domestic law. We will cover diplomatic and consular immunity, foreign sovereign (or foreign state) immunity, the immunities accorded to heads of state and government, and the special status of international organizations and their staff and member representatives, including the United Nations, its specialized agencies and individuals on special missions. Increasingly, practicing lawyers (especially those who represent governments and international organizations or who practice in places where embassies, consulates, missions and international institutions are located) need to be familiar with the reach of these rules and doctrines, and the exceptions thereto. Our focus will be on the practical application of the various international conventions, domestic statutes, and judicially crafted rules which define the law of international immunities.

Examines selected issues involving the application of criminal law to international activities and across national boundaries. The course covers both the procedural aspects of international cooperation in criminal matters (including extradition,  cross-border investigations, mutual legal assistance, and recognition of foreign penal judgments) as well as the developing substantive international law (e.g., war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, cybercrime, and trafficking in drugs, people and firearms). Particular attention is paid to the question of jurisdiction over criminal activities at the international level, in the context of activities such as money laundering, organized crime, and computer crime, including the reach of Constitutional protections to investigations and law enforcement activities overseas. Addresses the structure, jurisdiction, and jurisprudence of the ad hoc criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the statute and rules of evidence and procedure of the International Criminal Court.

The course focuses on international law applicable to the leading environmental and natural resource issues.  It provides a framework for identifying and addressing the legal issues, links international law with relevant national laws, and focuses on ways to strengthen compliance with international obligations.  The course covers climate change, ozone depletion, transboundary pollution and hazardous waste disposal, fresh water (both surface and ground water), marine resources, biodiversity, the links between human rights and environment and between environment and trade, and the financing of sustainable development.  Special attention is given to cutting edge issues, such as synthetic biology and ecocide as an international crime.

Learning goals for this course: To enable students to become effective counsel, litigators, negotiators, arbitrators, judges, or legal advisors on a broad range of international environmental problems; to understand international instrucments and negotiations; and to be able to apply legal concepts developed in the course within different national settings for implementing international law. 

This course provides an intensive survey of international human rights law and practice, with a principal focus on interpretation and implementation of human rights obligations, commitments, and norms in the practice of states. The course has three main components: in the first unit, we examine the development of the substantive law of human rights and its sources (including treaties, customary international law, and non-binding international instruments). In the second unit, we examine implementation of international human rights in the international, regional, and domestic systems, focusing on UN organs such as the Human Rights Council and treaty bodies as well as regional systems such as the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights.  Finally, in the third unit we look at the application of the substantive law and implementation mechanisms in the context of current issues in international human rights, including in the context of atrocities, and the refugee crisis. The course highlights selected contemporary ethical problems in international human rights law such as genocide, crimes against humanity, and torture; application of human rights obligations, commitments, and norms to non-state actors (including corporations); positive duties on states to protect individuals from abuses by non-state actors; universality of human rights and cultural relativism; and the need to protect human rights while countering terorism, including issues relevant to U.S. law and practice. Along the way we examine issues related to international immunities, impunity, human rights litigation under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act and Torture Victim Protection Act, and international criminal tribunals. 

This course provides an intensive survey of modern international human rights law. Tracing the historical evolution of human rights norms, we will first explore look at how and they became a dominant feature of the post-World War II, post-colonial, and post-Cold War international orders. We will cover the doctrinal and institutional mechanisms of the modern human rights system, including the core treaties and international and regional bodies, with a particular focus on how courts, both international and domestic, can give human rights the force of law--or deprive them of it. We will examine how international human rights law defines specific rights (e.g., the right to life, the prohibition of torture, freedom of expression), struggles to overcome structural and historical biases (e.g., discrimination on the basis of sex, gender, or race), and adapts to different contexts (e.g., climate change, armed conflict, social media and surveillance). Throughout the course, we will study why states and businesses respect human rights, why they don't, and how lawyers, NGOs, and other actors can work to ensure that most human rights norms are honored most of the time. Our readings will draw from case law, treaties, academic works, legal briefs, and other sources that offer a real-world sense of how 21st Century human rights law is articulated, litigated, and adjudicated.

Learning Objectives:

• Strengthen legal research, writing, and editing.
• Draft brief and bench memorandum.
• Deliver oral argument.

This project practicum will provide an opportunity for students to be involved in two projects designed to further accountability for war crimes and other atrocities.

Most of the work will be on the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA), which is a project established by the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom to assist the Ukraine Office of Prosecutor General (OPG) in investigating and prosecuting war crimes and atrocities committed during the conflict that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. 

A second project is the Innovation Council for International Justice (ICIJ), which is an initiative that will bring together experts from a wide variety of fields to analyze efforts to achieve accountability for war crimes and atrocities in order to draw lessons for innovative future approaches to this challenge. 

In the project portion of the course, students will be involved in activities with the ACA and the ICIJ that will give them a ground-level view of how institutions to provide accountability for atrocities operate in practice. These activities will enable them to acquire skills that go well beyond the typical law school experience, and may include:

(1) coordinating, developing agendas for, attending, and summarizing meetings involving ACA subject matter experts;

(2) helping organize visits to the US by Ukrainian prosecutors, investigators, and officials, as well as ACA events;

(3) working on initiatives requested by the OPG such as a victim and witness support protection and support program;

(4) supporting the collection of information on the Ukrainian population’s experience of the war and their conceptions of what would constitute accountability for harm; and

(5) conducting occasional research for the OPG.

The seminar portion of the course will:

(1) provide students with a solid understanding of how substantive international law attempts to ensure accountability for war crimes and other atrocities;

(2) give them an appreciation of the jurisdictional issues that arise in international criminal law and their implications for seeking justice;

(3) illuminate political and social challenges in creating mechanisms to seek justice for war crimes and atrocities;

(4) prompt consideration of the conceptual and jurisprudential issues involved in ascribing criminal liability to individuals who may have engaged in significantly different activities, through discussion of concepts such as command responsibility and joint criminal enterprise;

(5) invite reflection on ethical questions that arise in seeking accountability for war crimes and atrocities, such as potential tensions between obtaining an end to conflict and securing justice; the concept of a just peace; the extent to which political considerations should inform prosecutorial decisions; the appropriate role in prosecution decisions of local communities who have been harmed by atrocities; and the relative weight in prosecution decisions of considerations such as the gravity of an offense, strength of evidence, public attention, specific deterrence of allegedly culpable individuals, and general deterrence of future perpetrators.

In these ways, the practicum is designed to enable Georgetown law students to serve as leaders in the next generation of lawyers and policymakers devoted to seeking international justice.

This survey course introduces students to the nature, sources and institutions of international law and major developments in the contemporary international legal system. It considers such topics as treaties, executive agreements, customary international law and jus cogens; recognition of states and governments; the principle of self-determination; methods of international dispute resolution, especially before international courts including the ICJ and though international arbitration; domestic jurisdiction over disputes with international elements; international immunities; the role and operation of the United Nations and other international and regional entities, such as the EU and the OAS; International Human Rights Law; Law of the Sea; Law of Outer Space; Private International Law; how the international system protects (or fails to protect) the environment; International Criminal Law; the use of force in self-defense against other countries, rebellions, or terrorist groups, humanitarian intervention, etc.

Learning goals for this course:

Ability to analyze and interpret treaties, judgments and other international law instruments. Awareness of relationship between international and domestic law, how international law is made and applied, how domestic legal systems differ in their approach to international law.

This introductory course deals with the nature, sources and operation of "public international law," with some of the most important contemporary challenges to the international legal system, and with the international community’s evolving responses to those challenges. It includes such topics as the law governing treaties and other international agreements; the recognition of states and governments; methods for international dispute resolution including litigation in the International Court of Justice; the United Nations and other international and regional entities; international human rights and international criminal law; law of the sea and international environmental law; and the rules governing the use of force. Some attention is also given to the role of international law in the U.S. legal system; questions of jurisdiction, foreign sovereign immunity and the act of state doctrine; and the allocation of foreign affairs powers between the President, the Congress, and the Judiciary. We will discuss a few of the most pressing illustrations of the operation – or shortcomings – of the international legal system in the context of current problems or crises. As a first-year elective, this course is intended to offer a contrast or a complement to the bulk of the first year curriculum, by exposing students to the substance and style of foreign and international law materials, institutions, and dispute-resolution mechanisms, and to provide a gateway to Georgetown's rich international law upper class course offerings. 

This course is a broad introduction to public international law. Students will consider the nature of international law as law, sources of international law including customary international law, and the role of national and international tribunals in international dispute resolution. The course will also cover topics including the fundamentals of treaty law, statehood, recognition of states and governments, jurisdiction and immunity, state responsibility, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international environmental law, the law of the sea, and international commercial disputes. The course will touch on other relevant topics as time permits.

After introductory lectures on negotiation theory and practice, the seminar students will be divided into teams for a series of simulated negotiations covering government-to-government, government-private and transnational private negotiations.  Student performance in these negotiations and class discussions will comprise most of the course grade; no research paper or examination is required.

Examines international trade laws and regulations and World Trade Organization agreements affecting international trade, and the relationship of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 and other international agreements to U.S. law and practice. Considers, in detail, the U.S. antidumping, countervailing duty, safeguards (Section 201) laws and regulations and the WTO agreements that establish multinational standards applicable to the use of those remedies. Examines the WTO agreements on services, intellectual property, and technical barriers to trade. Examines the statutory remedies, particularly Section 301, that are available to address foreign restrictions on U.S. exports of goods, capital, services, and intellectual property. Analyzes the U.S.-China "trade war" and resulting tariffs and agreements.  Evaluates the role of Congress, the U.S. Trade Representative, and other U.S. agencies in setting trade policy and overseeing administration of the trade laws. Analyzes the WTO procedures for dispute resolution and key WTO panel and Appellate Body decisions. Reviews free trade agreements, including the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as well as bilateral investment treaties. The course includes a weekly discussion of current events affecting international trade law and regulation.

Modern interstate dispute resolution finds its basis in a string of ad hoc arbitrations and claims commissions from the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries.  The United States was an early adopter of arbitration as a means of resolving interstate disputes, first agreeing with the United Kingdom in 1794 in the Jay Treaty to resolve certain disputes remaining from the Revolutionary War.

In the first part of the 20th century, there was an effort to formalize such disputes, first through the PCA and then the PCIJ and ICJ.  In the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st century, there was a rapid increase in formal mechanisms or courts to hear state to state disputes, including the WTO and ITLOS mechanisms, other specialized courts, and a host of regional courts and tribunals.  Ad hoc arbitration and claims commissions continue to be used to resolve disputes as well.

This course will tackle state-to-state disputes a historical and comparative perspective, tracking the development of interstate dispute resolution over time and across institutions.  We will approach the history of interstate dispute resolution from both a legal and political science perspective.  In so doing, the course will ask the following questions:

• Why have states agreed to submit their disputes to arbitration or other dispute resolution mechanisms?  What were the international relations factors that permitted the use of such mechanisms?
• How successful are such means in resolving disputes between states?  What sorts of disputes can be resolved through arbitration or similar mechanisms? 
• How does interstate dispute resolution work in practice?
• What are common procedures for such disputes?
• How do international courts develop international law?
• What are the prospects for interstate dispute resolution going forward?  

This course provides an overview of major principles, theories, operational concerns, and public policy issues related to complex humanitarian emergencies. The course highlights selected contemporary crises, examining causes and consequences of these emergencies. Examples include Ukraine, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Myanmar and others. A particular focus is the role of humanitarian issues in foreign policy and international relations.

This seminar examines both progress and ongoing challenges in seeking meaningful justice and accountability for serious international crimes, including crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes. We’ll begin with an overview of the challenges of effective atrocity prevention and an examination of fundamental developments over the last few decades establishing international and hybrid criminal tribunals and other mechanisms of transitional justice, including truth and reconciliation commissions. Building on this foundation, and drawing upon legal scholarship, social science research, and country case studies, we will then explore a range of responses to key justice challenges recurring in a number of countries emerging from conflict. These challenges include: (1) the often complicated relationship between peace processes and justice initiatives; (2) the question of whose justice goals are being pursued and how national, regional, and international stakeholders interact in such efforts; and (3) the complexities of building enduring justice on the ground through meaningful domestic rule of law reform, outreach, cultural engagement, and other means. Students will write a substantial seminar paper within the subject matter scope of the seminar.

Surveys the law of armed conflict (LOAC) and customary international law as applied by the United States in warfare. From where does LOAC arise? What is a war crime – and who decides? What is “unnecessary suffering,” and what drives that legal determination? When does LOAC apply and what role do other rules of law, such as domestic U.S. law and International Human Rights Law play in regulating the conduct of armed conflict? Does it cover non-state actors? What are U.S. LOAC obligations, and how are they enforced? How does one distinguish illegal combatants from prisoners of war? Where do military commissions come from, and who may be tried by them? Could the atomic bombing of Nagasaki have been a war crime? Can a superior’s order constitute a defense to war crime charges? What is the U.S. position in regard to laser weapons? Land mines? Non-lethal weapons? Torture? Rendition? Reprisals? The assassination of enemy commanders? What is an illegal order, and what should a soldier do if she receives one? How may battlefield war crimes be prosecuted? Our inquiry will focus on the law applicable to the conduct of U.S. military operations in past and current conflicts, whether or not they be declared, whether they be internal or international. Although primarily focused on the law of land warfare, the law of air and naval warfare, as well as space and information warfare, will be considered.

Learning objectives:

To gain a firm understanding of the law of armed conflict and to consider, through discussion of practical exercise from the textbook, how the law is applied in an operational context.

This course examines domestic refugee law and policy, with particular focus on asylum and other refugee-related claims for protection that arise in the U.S. legal system. Students will become familiar with the key actors in the asylum and refugee law arena, including the U.S. Congress, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the federal courts, and international entities.

The course objectives are: (1) to equip students with an understanding of the principles of refugee policy, asylum law, and the United States' procedures for refugee protection, and (2) to provide students with a practical appreciation for how refugee policy is formed and a working knowledge of asylum law, which will serve as a foundation for academic research, clinical study, employment, pro bono work, and/or internship opportunities within the U.S. government and the NGO community.

In addition to focusing on the refugee definition as interpreted by U.S. courts, we will examine the processes for adjudicating asylum claims -- where the system works and where it fails. We will also seek to understand the limits of asylum law and explore the toughest issues facing asylum adjudicators and policy makers today.