Program Overview

LL.M. in International Law

Overview

The LL.M. in International Law is a postgraduate program that provides students with a comprehensive understanding of international law, including its principles, institutions, and practices. The program is designed to equip students with the knowledge and skills necessary to succeed in a rapidly changing global environment.

Course Details

The LL.M. in International Law is a one-year full-time or two-year part-time program that consists of six modules and a dissertation. The program is divided into two semesters, with three mandatory modules in the first semester and three elective modules in the second semester.

Semester One

• Advanced Legal Research and Writing: This module aims to develop students' research and writing skills, with a focus on online research, research methodologies, and legal writing.
• Law of International Organisations: This module introduces students to the international system of law and international institutions, including the United Nations and the European Union.
• International Commercial Law: This module examines the key contracts and institutions in international commerce, including private international law, international contract terms, and the Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

Semester Two: Electives

• Corporate Governance: This module explores the structure, objectives, and mechanisms of corporate governance, including the role of directors and boards, executive compensation, and shareholder activism.
• International Commercial Arbitration: This module provides a broad overview of the legal and practical aspects of international commercial arbitration, including the UNCITRAL Model Law and its application in Irish law.
• EU Internal Market and Competition Law: This module examines the economic and political basis for the Internal Market of the European Union, including the laws that ensure its operation and the policies of the European Union in the sphere of competition law.
• International Financial Services Law: This module deals with the institutional structures created to protect international financial transactions, including the impact of European Union legislation on the area.
• International Tax Law: This module analyzes the principal features of the international tax law system, including the main theories, concepts, and principles of international tax law.
• International Intellectual Property Law: This module provides a detailed overview of the principles regarding the key aspects of intellectual property law, including international copyright, patents, design rights, and trademark law.
• Gender, Sexuality and Human Rights: This module combines analysis of current law with a critical exploration of the structures, potential, and limits of law and legal reform in the area of gender, sexuality, and human rights.
• International Asylum and Immigration Law: This module provides a detailed and comprehensive understanding of international asylum and immigration law, including the principles, doctrines, and rules underpinning the area.
• International Criminal Law: This module examines selected issues and current problems involving the criminal law aspects of international law, including the duty to prosecute those who commit international crimes.
• International Humanitarian Law: This module extensively examines the development of the laws of armed conflict, including the categorization of conflicts, the status of parties to the conflict, and the application of the laws of armed conflict in contemporary battle grounds.
• Restorative Justice: This module brings together academic rigor and practical knowledge and skills in the field of restorative justice practices, enabling identification of the vital link between such practices and peacebuilding and reconciliation.
• Criminology: This module introduces students to the various aspects of the discipline of criminology, including the study of crime as a social phenomenon and the sub-discipline of victimology.
• Social, Economic and Environmental Rights: This module examines the protection of social and economic rights within international law, including the theoretical debates over the method of protection that these rights should be given.
• International Privacy and Data Protection Law: This module provides an explanatory overview of data protection and privacy law, taking an international perspective that encompasses Irish and EU law.

Semester Three: Dissertation

• Dissertation: The research dissertation is designed to permit students to delve into a topic that is of particular interest to them, and it comes at the end of the LL.M., at a point in time when continuous assessment and examinations in all taught modules have been completed.

Entry Requirements

• 2.2 degree in Law or a related discipline (that has a 50% legal component to the degree) or foreign equivalent.
• Relevant work experience may also be taken into consideration.

English Language

• Griffith College is accepting the online Duolingo English Test (DET) as valid proof of English proficiency.

Tuition Fees

• Irish/EU citizens, living in Ireland: EUR 8,150.00 (full-time), EUR 9,000.00 (part-time)
• Irish/EU citizens, living abroad: EUR 9,000.00 (full-time), EUR 10,000.00 (part-time)
• International: EUR 12,000.00 (full-time), EUR 14,000.00 (part-time)

Progression

• Many of our LL.M. graduates go on to pursue PhD studies, having acquired not only legal expertise but also advanced academic writing and legal research skills during the LL.M. program.
• Career options for our graduates include promotion for those who are already practicing in law, in-house legal roles with international or domestic human rights organizations, legal advisor within international or domestic NGOs, legal researcher in the area of international human rights law, and PhD study for an academic career.