• Comparative and Ethical Lawyering for the Rule of Law (3 credits)
• History, Theory and Practice of Law for Development (3 credits)
• Legal Writing and Research for Rule of Law (3 credits)
• Theory and Practice of Needs Assessments in Rule of Law Advising (3 credits)
• International Development Architecture (3 credits)
• Advising for Economic, Social and Institutional Reform (3 credits)
• Project Management (3 credits)
• Design of Rule of Law Programs and Proposal Preparation (3 credits)
• Preparation of a Thesis (3 credits)

Comparative and Ethical Lawyering for the Rule of Law (3 credits)

This course will develop the students' key knowledge and skills required to provide effective advice and assistance in a country with a culture and a legal system different from the culture and legal system in which students received their legal educations. The course will examine and compare the main elements of particular relevance to rule of law assistance work in each of the three major world legal systems: common law, continental civil law and Islamic law and the typical institutional frameworks adopted to organize each of these legal systems. It will also explore customary law sources in developing countries and how they are integrated in a formal way into modern legal systems and/or applied in practice. The course will also provide practical examples of successes and failures of cross-system rule of law assistance efforts attributable to success or failure to manage differences in legal systems and culture and explore relevant strategies for success. Finally, the course will encourage students to consider the ethical dimension of cross-system advising in settings, whose culture and value systems differ in fundamental ways from the advisor. 

History, Theory and Practice of Law for Development (3 credits)

This course will examine the roots of academically-oriented rule of law work in the 1960s and the earlier theoretical work upon which it was based and follow the development of the field to date with a double focus on theory and practice of rule of law initiatives undertaken in the setting of international development assistance programs. This course will also examine alternative change models to which rule of advisors can refer in their engagement with counterparts and in the conception of development of rule of law-related strategies.  In this context the course will examine the complex relationship between development and the state of the rule of law and examining recent research, which provides insights into that relationship.  Alternatives for the sequencing of reforms will be considered in order to provide the students with the ability to devise a further range of alternatives for policy implementation in real settings. The course will also examine the tools, which are currently employed in rule of law assistance and consider how to devise strategies for their most efficient deployment in light of relevant research.

Legal Writing and Research for Rule of Law (3 credits)

The course is designed to assist students in using the techniques of scholarly legal research and writing in relation to rule of law development. The methods and skills that will occupy this course are designed to achieve two objectives. The primary objective is to teach scholarly research and writing skills that will help prepare and assist you during the preparation of the LL.M. thesis. A secondary purpose is to teach writing and research skills that can also be used in practice involving policy and legal advice. In keeping with the focus on development issues, substantial emphasis is devoted to socio-legal and empirical legal research methodologies.

The course is designed as preparation and to complement the students’ thesis preparation. In addition to preparing to write scholarly legal prose on law and development topics, the course will consider the broader issue of what legal research and writing for law and development should involve. Who is the audience? What type of research is most needed? What methodologies are appropriate? Understanding these issues will be the product of an active deliberation among students. The overall approach to the subject will involve sharing of ideas, discussion of issues, and critiques of work as the students develop the theses.

Theory and Practice of Needs Assessments in Rule of Law Advising (3 credits)

This course will provide students with the knowledge and skills required to undertake the assessments of needs, the crucial lynchpin required for the design of specific rule of law initiatives. As this aspect of rule of law work requires the performance of tasks, which are generally outside the experience and training of law graduates, students will be provided with a new set of research and analytic tools and methodologies from outside their field. While concentrating on examples from the legal and justice sector, these tools will include interviewing skills, use of data from existing sources, the generation of new data, the design and conduct of reliable surveys, the use and interpretation of statistical data and the drafting of the assessment documents themselves. The course will relate closely to the courses on Comparative and Ethical Lawyering for the Rule of Law and the International Development Architecture, insofar as assessments will require analysis and description of the state of the target country's legal system, the functioning of law-related institutions, including the courts, the financing of the legal system and issues related to access to justice.

International Development Architecture (3 credits)

This course will prepare students to provide development law advice (or advice that is legal in nature and is intended to advance international development objectives) by clarifying the workings of the architecture of international development. It will examine how different international actors (public and private), and different mechanisms for governing economic relationships between developed and developing countries can influence domestic legal and policy reform. The course will consider Rule of Law (RoL) programming as one mechanism amongst others that lawyers can use in pursuing international development objectives.

The course will begin with a review of the approaches development law matters by the United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, international financial institutions, and the WTO. In doing so, it will explore the role and operational realities of such organizations within the international development architecture. The course will then open the investigation beyond development-oriented public international organizations to include the private (corporate and non-profit) sector, in order to further examine how development finance can influence domestic legal and regulatory landscapes.

The course will expose students to a broad range of legal and non-legal primary materials (e.g. project agreements, supporting design documents, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, Millennium Challenges compacts, etc.). It will highlight the central role that these documents can play in determining national development priorities. It will also highlight the importance of the design of the international development architecture for channelling funds to and between developing countries.

Throughout the course, the following questions will be asked: Where do the rules that affect developing countries’ legislative, regulatory, and policy frameworks (supporting e.g. health, trade, and microfinance) come from? Through what processes do they become integrated into domestic legal landscapes? How directly or indirectly do these rules affect domestic structures? Across the development architecture, how explicit is the use of law for achieving international development goals? What role is there for lawyers within these rule-making / rule-influencing systems?

Advising for Economic, Social and Institutional Reform (3 credits)

This course will survey the substantive areas most frequently dealt with in rule of law initiatives, the key issues present in each area and tested strategies for encouraging reform and building capacity in each area. The course will group the substantive areas into three categories and explore the main issues and reform strategies for each. First, the course will explore issues related to the development of the legal framework for investment, international trade and business and the capacity to structure, manage, govern and negotiate in these areas. Second, the course will examine how rule of law initiatives are dealing with issues relating to the well-being and security of individuals and social groups. This will include an examination of how rule of law initiatives interact with such issues as human rights, trafficking of people, restoration of rights after conflicts or national disasters, transitional justice, gender equity, environment, land tenure, health and legal empowerment of the poor. Finally, the course will examine how rule of law initiatives are undertaken to improve the institutional framework for justice and governance in various areas, such as improvement of the institutions of justice, judicial practice and the administration of justice; access to justice; control of corruption; public procurement; promotion of democratic systems and institutions; the establishment or improvements of constitutions; the allocation of governance responsibilities between central and subsidiary regional and municipal authorities; and taxation. Case studies will be used to illustrate the key issues faced and strategies adopted in each area explored.

Project Management (3 credits)

The project management course will be delivered on-line from the United States. The course will cover the main principles, considerations, and goals in managing rule of law projects in different parts of the world. The course will examine the sometimes conflicting pressures from outside (e.g., donor priorities, partners’ capacity) as well as inside the implementing organization (financial constraints, business development considerations). It will introduce participants to the variety of t ools available to assist in implementing and managing different kinds of development projects. This will require identifying any unique challenges of rule of law projects as opposed to other types of development projects. The course will cover the main tasks involved in managing a project, including recruitment, human resource management, procurement, inventory, budgeting, pipeline analysis, reporting, monitoring & evaluation, and of course, technical implementation. The discussion will outline the main steps in the project cycle, including start up, option year extensions, and close out. The course will cover management from the home office as well as management in the field, and will touch on issues arising in management of projects with sub-contractors. The last module will cover challenges arising in project management, including more abstract considerations such as how to handle implementation of a project with weak design or insufficient budget and what to do when the desires of recipient country partners conflict with the project as conceived and agreed with the donor.

Design of Rule of Law Programs and Proposal Preparation (3 credits)

This course will improve the understanding and skills of students in the area of project design and the preparation of proposals related to rule of law assistance. Accordingly, the course will develop the students' skills in undertaking the principle steps in the design process. Building on the course on needs assessments the course will begin with effective needs and problem analysis and then analyze the process of identification of goals, objectives and activities; project inputs and expected outputs, selection of appropriate project partners; the identification of performance indicators, design of a monitoring and evaluation plan, design and structuring of a proposal; prospective donor identification and the designing a plan for project management and reporting. The course will include instruction and practice in the building of logical project frameworks, the principal analytic tool used for project design in the international development community, the establishment of the credentials of the proposer to undertake the project and the design and preparation of a proposal for a project in a given jurisdiction.

Preparation of a Thesis (3 credits)

Each student will prepare a thesis on a topic approved by a supervisor, which, in part, takes advantage of the results of the Legal Writing and Research course undertaken. The approval of the supervisor will include (a) an agreement that the topic is sufficiently ambitious to warrant awarding three credit-hours of study; (b) a schedule of several on-line meetings to discuss the research and writing of the thesis; (c) an agreement that the student will prepare and the professor will carefully review and provide feedback on both a detailed outline and a subsequent complete first draft; and (d) subsequent submission by the student of a second draft and the finished thesis. The thesis shall be submitted in final form by July 31^st each academic year.