Assessment

This module aims to consider the increasingly complex inter-relationship between law and humanitarianism. In tracking changing ideas about 'natural' disasters and international intervention, it first focuses on the key questions that these events can raise: do law, politics, and humanitarianism live up to the tests posed by disaster and crisis? In what ways might disasters be considered injustices provoking a legal response? Does law have a positive role to play or does it act as a burden? What legal and political agency have disaster victims asserted or been denied? And what do disasters reveal about poverty, inequality, and social injustice through the operation or absence of law?

The module also aims to address the evolution of the laws of war (universally called International Humanitarian Law) and the specific regimes that are supposed to govern the conduct of warfare, 'humanitarian' intervention and post conflict occupation and reconstruction.

The assessment is a written essay of 4000/5000 words.