International Studies

Global Law Studies in our Faculty

Global Law Program

Semester 1

Introduction to Law

This course provides a general introduction to the law and to the study of law. Students will become acquainted with the main fields of law: private law, criminal law, constitutional and administrative law. Specific attention will be paid to the basic differences between common law and civil law systems and to the relationship between national laws and European law. Besides the study and discussion of literature, students will train specific legal skills, such as the use of statutes, the analysis of judgments and the solution of legal cases. This course seeks to:

  • Harmonize levels of understanding of law among lawyers and economists
  • Facilitate among lawyers from various countries an understanding of basic legal concepts and doctrines across legal systems
  • Introduce both lawyers & economists to legal concepts and methods that are instrumental in the field of law and economics.
עומר קמחי

Dr. Omer Kimhi
University of Haifa

Mrs. Jacki Silbermann
University of Haifa

  • 30/09/2413:00-17:00
  • 08/10/2412:00-16:00
  • 10/10/2414:00-18:00
  • 13/10/2412/00-14:00
  • 01/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 03/11/2410:00-12:00
  • 08/11/2408:30-12:00
Introduction to Microeconomics
Economic analysis of law investigates legal rules and enforcement from an efficiency perspective. The main purpose of this course is to equip students with the fundamental set of conceptual tools of microeconomics, which can be applied to different economic and regulatory problems. After dwelling into the analytics of consumers’ and producers’ choice, the course discusses the main market structures, risk and uncertainty, and market failures.

Dr. Hila Nevo
University of Haifa

  • 01/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 07/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 09/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 14/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 27/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 29/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 30/10/2408:30-12:00
  • 04/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 06/11/2408:30-12:00
Concepts and Methods of Law and Economics
This course offers an introduction to the basic concepts and methods of law and economics. It illustrates the broad utility of these tools by way of applications to the analysis of various core areas of law. This course does not aim to develop practical skills or new insights, but rather to show the broad utility of economic analysis of law. By combining examples from various areas of law, students will learn that the economic approach to law provides a unified vision of the law, tying together diverse areas of the law into a common theoretical structure.

Prof. Alessandro Pomelli
Bologna University Italy

  • 28/10/2414:00-17:30
  • 30/10/2414:00-17:30
  • 31/10/2414:00-17:30
  • 03/11/2414:00-17:30
  • 04/11/2414:00-17:30
  • 05/11/2414:00-17:30
Economic Analysis of Private Law
This course aims at giving students an overview of the most important insights from the economic analysis of private law. It combines economic analysis of property law, tort law, and contract law. As far as property law is concerned, the course integrates the legal and the economic approach to ownership and illustrates costs and benefits of different ways to protect entitlements. As far as tort law is concerned, the course offers a comparative analysis of the legal principles from an economic perspective, particularly regarding the structure of liability, the damage compensation, and the insurance. As far as contract law is concerned, the course illustrates its goals and functions from an economic perspective. Moreover, it aims to provide a functional understanding of the spectrum of feasible contracts and of their use in legal practice.

Prof. Jaroslaw Beldowski
University of Warsaw

Dr. Hila Nevo
University of Haifa

  • 18/11/2410:00-14:00
  • 19/11/2410:00-14:00
  • 20/11/2410:00-14:00
  • 21/11/2410:00-14:00
  • 22/11/2410:00-14:00
  • 24/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 26/11/2410:00-12:00
  • 27/11/2410:00-12:00
  • 28/11/2410:00-12:00
  • 01/12/2408:30-12:00
  • 05/12/2410:00-12:00
  • 11/12/2408:30-12:00
  • 12/12/2410:00-12:00
Economic Analysis of Public Law
This course focuses upon economic analysis of government intervention in markets, including several forms of regulation. It covers economic (or public interest) theories of regulation as well as private interest perspectives. In addition, the course considers cost-benefit analysis and behavioural perspectives on regulation. The assessment will be composed of a ‘short-answer-question’ written exam worth 75% of the grade and a group presentation worth 25% of the grade. the exam will be a take-home exam of three hours duration. The group presentation will take place during the final class and will concern a case study on the regulation of a particular area.

Hadar Zasbotinsky

  • 02/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 03/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 04/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 08/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 09/11/2408:30-12:00
  • 10/11/2408:30-12:00
Game-theoretical approaches to legal issues

The course introduces game-theoretical approaches to legal analysis. No previous knowledge in game-theory is needed. Yet, in the end, the students will have been acquainted with some core concepts of cooperative and non-cooperative game-theory through their application to a variety of legal issues in several domains of law. The course will follow this order.

  • Criminal deterrence (credible threats in extensive form games)
  • The dynamics of marriage and divorce (Gale-Shapley matching algorithm / Nash bargaining model)
  • Corruption and the limits of asymmetric criminalization (extensive form games, subgame perfect equilibrium)
  • Governmental accountability and the optimal level of public transparency (principal-agent models)
  • Separation of powers and the constitutional non-delegation principle (power indices)
  • Linguistic rights in multilingual societies (conversation games).

Prof. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde
University of Haifa

  • 13/11/2416:00-19:30
  • 20/11/2410:00-12:00
  • 20/11/2414:00-15:30
  • 27/11/2410:00-12:00
  • 27/11/2414:00-15:30
  • 04/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 11/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 18/12/2416:00-19:30
Emerging rights of nature: property, sovereignty, and legal personality
The course will start focussing on new legal stipulations concerning the status of nature or of elements of nature from a comparative, international, and legal-theoretical (mainly Hohfeldian) perspective. The discussion will take its roots in the 2017 legal personification of the river Whanganui in New Zealand. Similar attempts (successful or not) have since taken place which all display legal specificities to be accounted for. This “rights of nature” trend raises a lot of fundamental and practical issues that will be analyzed in the course: such as the role of indigenous communities and the nature of biocultural rights, the theoretical coherence of legal ecocentrism, the modalities through which a natural fixture can exert standing. It is clear that granting elements of nature which have, by definition, a territorial reality raises issues with classical notions of property and sovereignty. We will discuss notions such as permanent sovereignty over natural resources and shared sovereignty over migratory resources to illustrate the complex relationship between sovereignty principles and conceptual frameworks open to alternative forms of nature’s legal autonomy. Many implications follow in the domains of ocean-law and space-law for example, leading to the discussion of transnational commons or public trust doctrines. Finally, the course will probe our “natural” legal conceptions, i.e. our spontaneous ways of conceiving some coherent legal statuses and expressing legally coherent reasoning with respect to natural phenomena in the context of climate change (one main example will be taken from the international status of icebergs).

Prof. Sacha Bourgeois-Gironde
University of Haifa

  • 10/11/2412:00-15:30
  • 17/11/2412:00-15:30
  • 24/11/2412:00-15:30
  • 01/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 08/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 15/12/2412:00-15:30
Introduction to European Patent Law
The course will provide an overview of the European patent system and will focus on exciting aspects that have promoted, troubled or facilitated the system as a whole during the past decades. During the course we will discuss the patentability of biotech inventions, AI and pharmaceutical products while we will also debate the role exclusive rights as those granted by the patent system, may play in a global context. Finally we will have the opportunity to learn more about the recent changes brought by the Unitary Patent System and the Unitary Patent Court.

Frantzeska Papadopoulou
Stockholm University

  • 18/11/2416:00-19:30
  • 20/11/2416:00-19:30
  • 21/11/2416:00-19:30
  • 25/11/2416:00-19:30
  • 27/11/2416:00-19:30
  • 28/11/2416:00-19:30
Approaches to Criminal Law Theory

This course introduces students to different approaches to criminal law theory. First, we discuss theories of criminalization such as the German legal goods theory (“Rechtsgutstheorie”) and the harm principle. Second, we cover important contemporary concepts in criminal law theory such as ‘consent’ in sexual offense law. Lastly, we look at philosophical perspectives on the justification of legal punishment, compare different approaches to sentencing theory and practice, and discuss alternative proposals to legal punishment such as restorative justice.

Tatjana Hörnle

Max-Planck-Institut Freiburg

  • 08/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 10/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 12/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 16/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 18/12/2416:00-19:30
  • 19/12/2416:00-19:30
EU Law, History & Policy

Since its inception over seventy years ago, the European Union (EU) has emerged as one of the leading trading blocs in the world. Originally created around an economic agenda, the Union has since morphed from an intergovernmental organisation into something quite different and distinct.
This course examines this transformation and the forces behind it, exploring the institutions of the Union and the functioning of the European judicial system. Also, it investigates several of the foundational policies that the heart of the EU, and considers their role in the EU’s transformation.
This course finishes with an exploration of the four freedoms and drills down into the free movement of goods and its operation within the global trade system.

Michala Meiselles

Law School, Derby University

  • 17/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 19/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 22/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 24/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 26/12/2412:00-15:30
  • 30/12/2412:00-15:30

Semester 2

Economic Research on Civil Liability, Contracts and Property

The lecture will focus on important research on the role of civil law for economic development in Western Europe, where groundbreaking legal innovations in the late Middle Ages, which have been termed a "legal revolution" (Berman) or a "big bang" (Gordley), could be consolidated for the long term and contributed to the unprecedented economic rise of Western Europe. It also includes a discussion of the much-criticized argument that common law is more growth-oriented than civil law. The lecture continues with recent research on property, contract and civil liability. This includes liability for environmental damage, for pure economic loss in tort, after the the "Deep Water Accident" in the Caribbean (2010). It includes the discussion on the expansion of management without mandate, on new forms of property, and on the taming of the internet giants through new regulatory practices, after civil norms on abuse of dominant market position proved to be inappropriate. It also includes the debate on pre-contractual disclosure rules and on the basis of contract and unenforceability in contract law. And it shows how behavioral research has challenged conventional wisdom in law and economics. Basic knowledge of economics is welcome but not necessary. The lecture will be based partly on the second edition of the book "The Economic Analysis of Civil Law" by Schäfer and Ott (2022) and partly on recent literature which will be distributed before the course starts.

Hans-Bernd Schäfer

Bucerius Law School

  • 25/03/2516:00-19:30
  • 27/03/2516:00-19:30
  • 31/03/2516:00-19:30
  • 01/04/2516:00-19:30
  • 03/04/2516:00-19:30
  • 06/04/2516:00-19:30
European Data Law

The European Data Law course will focus on current issues of data regulation and data use, particularly in the context of EU law. The subject of interest will be the regulation of personal data and the European Data Strategy and the resulting legal initiatives such as the Data Governance Act, the Data Act and European Data Spaces. The regulation of AI will not be left out. The aim of the course is to introduce the basic concepts of data regulation with a focus on both the theoretical level of legislation and the practical level of data use in specific areas (e.g. energy sector, health sector).

Jakub Míšek
Masaryk University

František Kasl
Masaryk University

  • 05/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 07/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 08/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 12/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 14/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 15/05/2516:00-19:30
Labour Regulation in the Global Economy

The aim of this course is to understand the impact of the global economy on the world of work and the nature of the regulatory challenges it presents. The unit will examine the role played by labour law in securing fair and just working conditions and effective labour market regulation by comparing various regulatory models from different national legal systems.

Emanuele Menegatti
Bologna University

  • 19/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 21/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 22/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 26/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 28/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 29/05/2516:00-19:30
EU: International Perspectives Free Trade, Climate change, and Social Justice

The course concerns recent development in EU law, resulting from the new central concern to combat climate change, laid down by the EU Green Deal (2019). In this context, the EU Commission committed to put climate change law at the core of all EU policies, including trade policy and corporate law, and to make sure that climate change reforms take into account the most vulnerable categories of citizens (fair transition). Legislation quickly followed, coined “Delivering the Green Deal”.

Our purpose in this course is to focus on measures concerning international trade, and the behavior of international business actors, in particular corporations. Unilateral EU acts (EU legislation in the domains of Energy, Deforestation, and Forced labour) will be considered, together with EU Trade agreements (esp. their environment and social provisions). Regulation of corporate conducts, through Sustainable reporting and Sustainable due diligence will also be an important section of the course.

This course intends to engage students in discussions on how to reconcile international trade, climate change mitigation, and social justice, taking EU law as a starting point for reflection.

Sophie Robin-Olivier
University Paris 1

  • 18/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 29/05/2512:00-15:30
  • 21/05/2512:00-15:30
  • 22/05/2512:00-15:30
  • 25/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 26/05/2512:00-15:30
Global Technology Law and Policy

Global Technology Law and Policy is an intensive three-week course that examines the development of global technology and intellectual property policy. The ciurse is a joint initiative of the University of Ottawa and the University of Haifa with ten students from each university participating. The first week of the seminar will be held in Ottawa with five classes focused on global technology law institutions including the World Intellectual Property Organization, ICANN, the ITU, the European Union, the OECD and other private and public global forces and entities. Classes will also feature several guest lectures and academic site visits. Students will transfer after the first week to the University of Haifa, where classes will continue during weeks two and three on the global institutions and the development on policies on intellectual property, Internet governance, cybersecurity and privacy.
Students will form project groups to focus on a single specific policy issue and present their findings to the class in the final week of classes. In addition, they will submit a final paper related to the course's materials, in accordance to the predefined scope of seminar papers at the University of Haifa – Faculty of Law.

Prof. Michael Geist
University of Ottawa

Global Technology Law and Policy

Global Technology Law and Policy is an intensive three-week course that examines the development of global technology and intellectual property policy. The ciurse is a joint initiative of the University of Ottawa and the University of Haifa with ten students from each university participating. The first week of the seminar will be held in Ottawa with five classes focused on global technology law institutions including the World Intellectual Property Organization, ICANN, the ITU, the European Union, the OECD and other private and public global forces and entities. Classes will also feature several guest lectures and academic site visits. Students will transfer after the first week to the University of Haifa, where classes will continue during weeks two and three on the global institutions and the development on policies on intellectual property, Internet governance, cybersecurity and privacy.
Students will form project groups to focus on a single specific policy issue and present their findings to the class in the final week of classes. In addition, they will submit a final paper related to the course's materials, in accordance to the predefined scope of seminar papers at the University of Haifa – Faculty of Law.

Anthony Julius

  • 04/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 06/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 08/05/2512:00-15:30
  • 11/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 13/05/2516:00-19:30
  • 15/05/2512:00-15:30
Test dates: 18-22/05