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Introduction to Law

2020/2021
Учебный год
ENG
Обучение ведется на английском языке
4
Кредиты
Статус:
Курс обязательный
Когда читается:
1-й курс, 3, 4 модуль

Course Syllabus

Abstract

1. Course Description a. Pre-requisites No preparatory courses are necessary. b. Course Type & format (compulsory, elective, optional) • compulsory; • for Moscow campus; • online lectures and seminars c. Abstract The course represents a general introduction to the discipline and practice of law, with a particular emphasis on international, transnational, and eventually, global law and regulation. It examines the nature, sources, principles, and instruments of law and regulation, studying in depth the structure and mechanisms of the—today—global(ized) legal system, through analyzing and discussing the main issues that currently challenge the global community. This course is primarily aimed at providing the students with the necessary tools to understand and study the nature, sources and role of law, with a particular emphasis on business and economic law and regulation.
Learning Objectives

Learning Objectives

  • No business lawyer, policy-maker, lobbyist, manager, or consultant may effectively operate today without a solid understanding of domestic and global regulation. Indeed, regardless of your future sector of activity, you will need to know how, when and where relevant decisions are taken in order be able to use or influence them. What if the European Commission proposes to restrict the entrance of goods or services that your company exports to the EU internal market? And what if it complains that your country’s (although not at all an EU Member-state) internal taxation policies in the mining sector, the electronics, or technology industry are illegal? Could it at all file such a complaint? And if so, where and how? This course, by addressing this type of questions, will help students to understand both micro and macro legal and regulatory framework applicable to any person, company, and economic activity such as manufacturing, IT, banking, finance, consumer products, mining, etc. - Students will get the basics of how to work with primary and secondary sources of law; - Students will learn to use professionally legal and regulatory concepts, tools and language relevant for local and global business.
Expected Learning Outcomes

Expected Learning Outcomes

  • • locate and apply relevant regulatory requirements; • identify, research, articulate and apply the legal principles relevant to your professional and personal life; • communicate effectively about legal principles, rights and responsibilities; • anticipate and mitigate legal risk and problems arising in your professional and personal life.
Course Contents

Course Contents

  • Foundations of Law
    What is Law? The main question that must be answered in any introduction to law deals with the nature of law. The law is multifaceted, and arguably it has been in flux over the years. In the digital age of globalization, it is changing at high speed. It is therefore not possible to give a short definition of law from the outset. What is possible, however, is to mention a few characteristics of law. The majority of legal phenomena shares most of these characteristics, but not all legal phenomena share all of them.
  • Sources of Law
    The question whether a particular rule is also a legal rule can have a large practical importance because the answer may determine whether the rule will be enforced by state organs. Lawyers have developed a number of standards to determine whether a rule has the status of law, and these standards are known as the sources of law. In this class, we will take a closer look at these sources of law. More particularly, we will address the following questions: what is a source of law, and which sources of law are recognized.
  • The Law of Contract
    Modern society is unthinkable without the possibility to conclude binding contracts. Not only that contracts allow businesses to trade goods and offer services, but contracts are also used by citizens to pursue the things they are after, even if they do not always realize it. Thus, people conclude contracts when they buy products in a supermarket, rent an apartment, take out insurance, open a bank account, download software, take up a new job, are treated by their doctor, go to the hairdresser, or order tickets over the Internet to go to a Lady Gaga concert. The set of rules and principles that governs these transactions is the law of contract.
  • Tort Law
    In civil litigation, contract and tort claims are by far the most numerous. The law attempts to adjust for harms done by awarding damages to a successful plaintiff who demonstrates that the defendant was the cause of the plaintiff’s losses. Torts can be intentional torts, negligent torts, or strict liability torts. Employers must be aware that in many circumstances, their employees may create liability in tort. This class explains the different kind of torts, as well as available defenses to tort claims.
  • Constitutional Law
    The law is strongly connected to the state, on one hand, because the state creates most of the law and, on the other hand, because the state itself is regulated by the law. The branch of law that regulates the state itself is called constitutional law. Constitutional law contains rules on the organization of a state, on the powers that its organs possess, and on the relations between these organs (institutional law), and it provides fundamental rights that protect the legal position of the individual against the state (human rights law, judicial review, and, as an offspring, administrative law).
  • . Basic Concepts of Law: Common law and Civil law systems
    Law is not a homogeneous body of rules. In fact, it consists of many “fields of law” such as property law, constitutional law, international law, and criminal law. Legal systems in countries around the world generally fall into one of two main categories: common law systems and civil law systems. There are roughly 150 countries that have what can be described as primarily civil law systems, whereas there are about 80 common law countries. The main difference between the two systems is that in common law countries, case law — in the form of published judicial opinions — is of primary importance, whereas in civil law systems, codified statutes predominate. But these divisions are not as clear-cut as they might seem. In fact, many countries use a mix of features from common and civil law systems.
  • Administrative Law
    There has been a dramatic increase in the activities of government during the last hundred years. Schemes have been introduced to help ensure a minimum standard of living for everybody. Government agencies are involved, for example, in the provision of a state retirement pension, income support and child benefit. A large number of disputes arise from the administration of these schemes and a body of law, administrative law, has developed to deal with the complaints of individuals against the decisions of the administering agency.
  • Criminal Law
    Certain kinds of wrongdoing pose such a serious threat to the good order of society that they are considered crimes against the whole community. The criminal law makes such anti-social behavior an offence against the state and offenders are liable to punishment. The state accepts responsibility for the detection, prosecution and punishment of offenders. The sanctions are so severe that the criminal law normally requires an element of moral fault on the part of the offender. Thus, the prosecution must establish two essential requirements: actus reus (prohibited act) and mens rea (guilty mind). For most criminal offences, both elements must be present to create criminal liability.
  • International Law
    Traditionally, two kinds of law are distinguished. On the one hand, there is national or domestic law, which deals with legal relations within the territory of a single state and with the organization of that state itself. On the other hand, there is international law which deals with the legal relations between states. International law, also known as public international law and law of nations, is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally accepted in relations between nations. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for states to follow across a broad range of domains, including war, diplomacy, trade, and human rights. International law thus provides a mean for states to practice more stable, consistent, and organized international relations. The sources of international law include international custom (general state practice accepted as law), treaties, and general principles of law recognized by most national legal systems.
  • Property Law
    The law of property is concerned with the rights which may arise in relation to anything that can be owned. Thus, property covers land, goods and intangible rights such as debts, patents or the goodwill of a business. Property, which seems like a commonsense concept, is difficult to define in an intelligible way; philosophers have been striving to define it for the past 2,500 years. Blackstone’s famous definition is somewhat wordy: “The right of property is that sole and despotic dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in total exclusion of the right of any other individual in the universe. It consists in the free use, enjoyment, and disposal of all a person’s acquisitions, without any control or diminution save only by the laws of the land.” A more concise definition, but perhaps too broad, defines property as the “legal relationship between persons with respect to a thing.”
  • Intellectual property Law
    Few businesses of any size could operate without being able to protect their rights to a particular type of intangible personal property: intellectual property. Unlike tangible personal property (machines, inventory) or real property (land, office buildings), intellectual property is formless. It is the product of the human intellect that is embodied in the goods and services a company offers and by which the company is known. This chapter introduces the major forms of intellectual property are patents, copyrights, and trademarks. It then proceeds to explain the nature of each form of intellectual property right and the process for securing those rights. It also provides the extent of protection afforded the holder of intellectual property rights and the method or manner of enforcing those rights against infringers.
  • The Law and Disruptive technologies: bilateral influence
    The advent of a highly disruptive technology necessarily butts up against existing laws, regulations and policies designed for the status quo as well as established businesses. This course takes the examples of driverless cars, artificial intelligence, block chain, robotic and bio-engineering to examine the new and challenging legal questions and opportunities presented by these technologies. We will also discuss how business leaders, lawyers and technologists in these areas can navigate and create legal, regulatory and policy environments designed to help their businesses not only survive but thrive. Through a combination of readings, classroom discussions, expert guest speakers from the relevant technology and policy fields and student presentations, this course explores the promise of these technologies, the legal and regulatory challenges presented and the levers in-house counsel and business leaders in these fields can invoke to better navigate the inevitable obstacles facing these highly disruptive technologies.
Assessment Elements

Assessment Elements

  • non-blocking classroom-based work
  • non-blocking home-task
  • non-blocking in-class presentation
  • non-blocking exam
    The students will be evaluated on their performance during the lectures and seminars. Each student is expected to attend all the sessions having read and thought about the assigned material and actively participate in class discussions, ask questions and make analytical comments. Some students (two-three per session) can also be called at random to answer particular discussion questions, and to brief and examine cases and problems. The knowledge of the students will be assessed in class through discussion of assigned readings, close and/or open questions, as well as on the ground of their active/inactive participation in class discussions
Interim Assessment

Interim Assessment

  • Interim assessment (4 module)
    0.1 * classroom-based work + 0.4 * exam + 0.2 * home-task + 0.3 * in-class presentation
Bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

  • An Introduction to Law, Harris, P., 2007

Recommended Additional Bibliography

  • An Introduction to Constitutional Law, Barendt, E., 1998