IR 434 Selected Topics in International Law

This is a senior-level seminar that treats international law not as a finished rulebook but as a contested field still being reshaped by sovereignty disputes, human rights pressures, armed conflict, and, centrally here, the disruptions of digitalization and cyberspace. You will read heavyweight theorists like Koskenniemi alongside case law and state practice, then test those frameworks in class presentations on topics like cyber attacks, cyber terrorism, and the digital reach of human rights. Building on the introductory public international law you already have, it pushes you toward the harder doctrinal and political questions that dominate current scholarship and practice.