The European Convention on Human Rights is the most influential regional human rights treaty. This module looks at interpretation and enforcement of the Convention. It examines the institutions within the Council of Europe, analyses case-law on substantive guarantees in areas such as protection of life, freedom from inhuman and degrading treatment, privacy and freedom of expression, considers thematic issues, and explores challenges facing the ECHR system.

Human rights protection is a global concern. This module examines civil and political rights along with economic, social and cultural rights, and assesses the range of international monitoring and supervision regimes. Topics covered include the major international treaties and bodies. It also looks at the challenges to human rights in transitional societies as well as the right to self-determination.

The Human Rights Act 1998 was a major constitutional development in the UK. This module examine the ongoing transformation in UK legal cultures by exploring the commitment to human rights protection in the UK, and the resulting impact on constitutional principles and institutions. The module explores current human rights issues, drawing on a range of case-law, legal and theoretical literature, governmental reports and NGO accounts.

International migration is a global phenomenon that raises multiple complex issues. This module examines the international legal framework governing international migration. Topics include protection of migrant workers, international refugee protection, the EU asylum policy, and internal displacement.

This module examines the role of business entities as global actors and the identification of the legal challenges that business presents for the international legal system. Gross human rights abuses have been clearly documented by various NGOs around the world and range from murder to the violation of socio-economic rights and environmental damage. The quest for corporate accountability for human rights violations has been the focal point for the ‘business and human rights’ movement, which gives rise to crucial questions about what business responsibility to protect human rights consists of, who should monitor conduct, and how rights holders can access justice.

A shift towards automated decision-making and algorithmic regulation generates significant concerns for the protection of human rights. At the same time, there is a pressing need to study these technologies’ beneficent effects on human rights. This module aims to assess the suitability and relevance of existing human rights law in the digital age, and to evaluate conceptual, cross-disciplinary frameworks, which analyse how digital technologies shape developments in human rights law. 

Your Masters will culminate in a dissertation. This is an extended project of enquiry into an area of your own choice. You'll create knowledge in answer to a question which really intrigues you.

While you'll be very much in the driving seat, your work is nurtured and guided by a member of our academic staff team. You'll be guided by some of the world’s foremost experts.

60 credits

This module supports students writing an enhanced research proposal, with a view to supporting their transition into PGR study (PhD/MPhil studies) and creating an early research supervision relationship with a prospective supervisor.

60 credits

This module gives students the opportunity to apply to pursue an internship in a national or international organisation relevant to their course. The internship allows students to be placed in a relevant host organisation for a specified number of hours agreed with the Strathclyde tutor. The student will be responsible for producing an internship report which will include an account of the knowledge and skills attained applying theoretical concepts and with reference to discipline specific literature as well as an in-context self-reflective analysis of the experience, the organisation and the work undertaken enabling broader critical reflections on the student’s place in the professional world.

60 credits

This module gives students to apply to do independent work in the final semester of their LLM/MSc. Students will be required to identify and co-design the project supported by their Strathclyde mentor. The project report includes the response to the research question co-designed with a relevant host organisation as well as an in-context self-reflective analysis of the project, the organisation and the student’s experience in executing the work enabling broader critical reflections on the student’s place in the professional world.

This course will explore the evolving nature and distinctive components of the international legal framework on climate change.

In the past half-century, the scope of international law has increased dramatically. From a tool dedicated to the regulation of formal diplomacy, international law has expanded to deal with the most varied kinds of international activity, from trade to environmental protection, and from human rights to scientific and technological cooperation. Most of this expansion has taken place through international treaties and institutions. International environmental treaties provide a case in point, both in terms of their relationship with other fields of international law (e.g. international trade law) and in terms of the relationship between its constituent parts (i.e. the various geographically and functionally limited regimes that make up its corpus).

This module will provide an overview of global and regional environmental treaty regimes. It will explore the causes, manifestations, and implications of this deficit, and the ways in which policy coherence, mutual supportiveness, and synergies in implementation can be promoted.

This course will explore the main legal regimes related to the oceans and seas, with an in-depth focus on recent developments in marine governance in the context of sustainable development.

This module offers students the opportunity to engage critically with the philosophy and history of international criminal justice, as well as the legal frameworks, enforcement mechanisms, and contemporary developments in the arena of the prosecution of international crimes (genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, aggression, and torture). It explores some of the major developments that have taken place in the arena of international criminal justice over the last quarter of a century, their historical antecedents and contemporary implications.

The western world’s “penal crisis” has, over the past thirty years, posed specific challenges to the reform tradition. In this module we explore the nature, dimensions and national permutations of that crisis, putative solutions to it and likely obstacles to their realisation. We draw on theoretical developments in the study of justice and punishment and explore their potential to illuminate and inform processes of progressive penal change.

The module examines contemporary changes, international evidence and policy transfer, and technological challenges and considers reform across the globe. The module draws on insights and perspectives including law, the sociology of punishment, history and the social sciences.

Learning is conducted through a range of innovative methods such as debates and media representations. The module is supplemented by visits to key institutions' prisons, women’s justice centres, as well as conferences with key practitioners and policy makers.

Youth justice attracts interest across society, politically, socially and legally. Some issues – from the murder of two year old James Bulger in 1993 by two 10 year old children to the riots in 2011 in England – spark moral panic and demonstrate the extent to which such matters cut across disciplinary boundaries and influence legal and societal responses to children who offend. 

Youth justice generates its own philosophical approaches eg in the welfare / justice debate. It also provides a context within which to examine broader issues affecting criminal justice as a whole such as the need to balance the rights of the accused against the public interest. 

This class will provide an opportunity for you to critically examine some key aspects of youth justice law, policy and philosophy from a number of perspectives. Your learning will be supplemented by visits to custodial and innovative community settings, as well as a visit to and a simulation of Scotland’s unique system of ‘Children’s Hearings’ (a decision-making system based on the best needs of the child).

This class will provide you with an advanced instruction in the law of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). You’ll explore the core rules of non-discrimination and most-favoured nation treatment which underpin many of the legal agreements comprising the WTO. You’ll also look in detail at the operation of the WTO dispute settlement system. The analysis will then move on to certain of the more specialised WTO agreements as well as the operation of numerous regional trade agreements.