Each class is a separate one-credit hour class taught by a different instructor. For more information about the individual instructors, please click the “Faculty” link on the left.

This course will provide an introduction to the historical development of Islamic law, its sources and methods of legal reasoning, and a sample of cases. The focus will be on Islamic law as a dynamic integral legal system that governed Islamic societies before Islamic law was transformed into a hybrid system containing western influences. Therefore, the sample cases will be taken from two texts written as guides for lawyers in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries.

Competition Law – called “antitrust law” in the United States – is the study of laws prohibiting agreements between competitors, price fixing, monopolies, and mergers and acquisitions that substantially lessen competition. Strong competition laws are necessary for healthy national economies and world trade.

This course will introduce students to the basic principles of American antitrust law and compare them their counterparts in the European Union. The course will also include discussion of agreements between the United States and European Union to cooperate on competition law, as well as other relevant competition regimes, treaties and international organizations.

Comparative Constitutional Law has enhanced importance in the modern world. Almost a quarter of the countries of the world have revised or completely rewritten their constitutions within the past 25 years. In examining this phenomenon, the course introduces participants to the process of creating, implementing, and interpreting post-World War II constitutions. Through a combination of lecture, case studies, and group discussion, students will consider the constitutional experiences of the European Union and countries such as India, Germany, Malaysia, South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria. Students will gain familiarity with modern constitutional frameworks, the use of constitutional revision as a political tool, and challenges posed during the implementation phase of a new or revised constitution.

The European Union is now comprised of 27 Member States, with a total population approaching 500 million citizens. It is therefore one of the world's most economically powerful trading blocs. This course will consider the formation of the European Economic Community, and its evolution into the European Union. In particular, emphasis will be placed upon the legal relationship between the institutions of the European Union and the 27 Member States, and the manner in which law created at a European level impacts upon the internal legal systems of those Member States.