This course aims to introduce students to the basic concepts and rules of law. The main objective of the course is to equip students with a theoretical and practical understanding of the law and to stimulate and deepen their motivation for studying the law. Students should learn how a lawyer approaches legal problems and become sufficiently familiar with the relevant rules so that they too can advise a hypothetical client of what his rights and liabilities are likely to be in a particular situation, for example, if he is charged with a crime, or considers that his private rights have been violated and wishes to sue the perpetrator.

The course surveys the principal rules governing civil and criminal actions, examines how courts operate, what sources of law are available to them, and looks in detail at typical legal problems. Students will become familiar with the main areas of law, i.e., constitutional law, government, property, contracts and treaties, crimes, torts, forms and procedures, legal interpretation, and justice through a comparative approach in European continental tradition and common law tradition. The course also includes the basics of International and European law and the protection of human rights.

READING MATERIALS:

Required Materials (Available in the Library or at NEO)
• Honoré, Tony. About Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005
• Simpson, A.W.B. Invitation to Law. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1988
• Apple, James G., A Primer on the Civil-Law System, Washington, D.C., FJC, 1994
• Aust, Anthony. Handbook of International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Chapters 1, 11, 23.


Recommended Materials (Available in the Library or via Interlibrary Loan)
• The Avalon Project. Documents in Law History and Diplomacy at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp
• Gary L. U. Slapper, How the law works (Taylor & Francis 2016).
• Rupert Haigh, International Legal English, A Practical Introduction for Students and
Professionals (Taylor & Francis, 2021, 6th ed.).
• Federalist Papers. New York, 1787-1788.
• Gearey, Adam, et all. The Politics of the Common Law. Perspectives, Rights, Processes, Institutions. London: Routledge, 2013.
• Weinrib, Ernest. The Idea of Private Law. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995.
• Pipes, Richard. Property and Freedom. Vintage Books, 1999.
• Fried, Charles. Contract as Promise. A Theory of Contractual Obligation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1981.
• Glenn, Patrick. Legal Traditions of the World. Sustainable Diversity in Law. Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 224-272.