Life Of A Law Student's Guide To: Public International Law

Faith

March 1

Welcome back to another Life Of A Law Student's Guide To blog post! I know, I know, another law-related blog post but what can I say, if my first love is reading then my second love would be law. So, you get more law-related blog posts.

Now, let's get into it: Public International Law is another compulsory class and I would recommend taking other International Law or Human Rights-related electives if you enjoy this class. This class gives you a general overview of how International Law works and operates (or fails to operate). This is the class where we get introduced to a lot of functions of the United Nations as well as International Criminal Courts and other types of international courts and tribunals.

So, some of the topics you may cover in this class are:

participants in the public international law system
source of public international law
jus ad bellum (should we fight/ when to fight/ reasons to fight)
false flags
use of force
jus in bello (how you fight)
international courts and tribunals
international financial institutions and trade treaties

The point of this class is to help you understand how international law works as well as how important international bodies operate. The topics of jus ad bellum and jus in bello are especially important when looking at how international bodies react to acts of aggression and war.

My advice would be to pay attention to those two topics (jus ad bellum and jus in bello) and to take good notes on those particular topics as well. I remember spending a few weeks looking at them (as well as revising them) so, it goes without saying that those topics are very important. If you need extra help when it comes to note-taking I have two blog posts that may be useful: How To Read Legal Cases And Take Notes and How I Take Notes In Class (Online and Handwritten).

I also want to mention again that if you enjoy learning about how international bodies operate (like the United Nations function) then I highly recommend taking some other international law papers. I have guides to International Human Rights Law, Human Rights and Business Law and International Indigenous Law which are all really great papers.

Now, this is a class that does look at some sensitive topics so, I would also recommend being respectful and kind when discussing topics in this class.

Ultimately, this was an interesting class. I actually did some of my International Law-related papers before I did this class so luckily I understood some of the topics a little bit already.

So, that's it for my guide to Public International Law. I hope this summary is helpful in preparing for this class. As usual, thank you so much for reading and I hope you have a lovely day.