SSC 171 Law, Society and Justice

Content

One legal case that will undoubtedly capture the headlines concerns the accusation of group insult and incitement to hatred and discrimination of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. The debates around this case form a good illustration of the three perspectives of the law taken in this course. There is the legal, descriptive question as to whether Dutch law and international human rights law permits a politician to compare the Qu’ran to Mein Kampf. How does the Dutch criminal code understand incitement to hatred? What are the limitations to the freedom of speech as enshrined in the Dutch Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights? At the same time, normative discussion will undoubtedly also lead to heated debate: ought a politician be limited in his freedom of speech at all? Should this be a matter for the judiciary, or is this an issue for the legislature to decide upon? Many scholars will undoubtedly take a third, socio-scientific approach, debating the significance of this case within society and for the Dutch standing in the world: how does it affect intergroup relations? Impact upon foreign policy? Reflect a shift in legal consciousness?
The course thus offers three difference perspectives to the law: the legal-descriptive, the normative and the socio-scientific. We spend the first two weeks exploring the different understandings of law in a general sense. Subsequently, we turn to the main legal systems of the world, and the way in which they are shaped by the histories and cultures of the countries concerned. After that, we focus on various fields of law: constitutional law, criminal law, civil law and administrative law. Apart from discussing the main principles within each field of law, we explore them through reading case law, visiting the International criminal court and conducting a moot court session.
After the Fall break, we first work on a number of legal skills, like reading statute law and reading and citing case law. Additionally, we look at legal institutions, and the enforcement of law, for instance through visiting the Middelburg District Court.
As a final part of the course, we focus upon the relationship between law and society. To what extent can rules and regulations bring about social change? And how are societal changes reflected in legal demands? Students will work upon a group project to research a specific socio-legal subject, looking both into theory and practice. They will take a classic socio-legal study as a point of departure, and subsequently conduct a small research project on a related theme. In the final week of the course, they will discuss their group report and the underlying literature with an expert in the field of socio-legal studies. The Roosevelt Academy has the honour of hosting the annual conference of the Netherlands-Flemish socio-legal studies association in December 2010, with one of the world’s leading legal anthropologists, Prof. SE.E. Merry, as a keynote speaker. Apart from presenting and discussing their research with the scholars present, students are welcome to attend all sessions on Thursday the 16th and Friday the 17th of December. The themes of the group projects could include:
* Human rights and gender justice/women and the law
* Racial minorities and the law
* The criminal legal system
* Euthanasia and the law
* Access to Justice
* Environmental justice in Zeeland: debating the mussels case
* Environmental justice
* The Sharia in the Netherlands
* Theories of Social Control …
* The notion of a semi-autonomous social field …
* What lawyers do…

Instructor

Dr. Barbara Oomen or Dr. Pieter Ippel

Period

Fall / 2011

Required for

This course is required in order to take the following courses:

• SSC 271 International and European Law
• SSC 275 Principles of Private Law
• SSC 276 International Business Law
• SSC 370 General Theories of Law
• SSC 375 Origins of Human Rights

This course is an alternative requirement for the following courses:

• SSC 215 Consumer Society and Media
• SSC 231 Anthropology and the Study of Politics
• SSC 259 International Relations: Immigration and Asylum
• SSC 312 Contemporary Latin American Social Theory