Law, Democracy and Human Welfare: Global Perspectives (LLM) (Intensive) - 2013/2014 entry

A range of national and transnational crises are addressed through welfare-centred models of responding to human need, suffering, and 'deviance'. These crises include people seeking asylum, populations in need arising out of conflicts or natural disasters, populations subject to pandemics, and communities in social and economic crisis. This programme offers you the opportunity to study the legal and wider social and economic structures that determine the responses to these crises.

There is an increasing privatisation of formerly state-based responses to social and economic crises. There is also a globalisation of strategies and mechanisms of governance: a transnational flow of technologies for addressing social welfare demands and needs. This is the only programme in the UK that responds to these developments by combining the focus on governmental responses to human suffering and need with the study of private sector organisations delivering services to populations in crisis.

Human need and suffering is increasingly the catalyst for local and transnational protest movements. This programme brings Birkbeck's avowedly critical approach to questions concerning the 'commons', as well as to the political and juridical questions concerning natural resources, water and food.

• Our new intensive programme is ideal if you are unable to follow a weekly course of study (e.g. due to work or family circumstances).
• Unique combination of policy-centred expertise and wider theoretical study of structures of governance and regulation. 
• Train in the critical examination of the law, institutions and practice that constitute global and local responses to human need and suffering. 
• Taught by established experts on theory and practice in the field. 
• Introduces you to a broad geographical and institutional spectrum, from the UK to the EU and from South Asia to Africa. 
• Watch our video: studying law at Birkbeck.

You will take 2 compulsory core modules:

• The Legal Regulation of Welfare: Global Perspectives
• UK Public and Private Law: Accountability for Delivery of Welfare.

And 4 option modules, one of which is a dissertation. Option modules may include: 

• Asylum Support: Comparative Perspectives 
• Governance Through Pandemics: Global Perspectives 
• Natural Disasters and Political-Economy: Global Perspectives 
• Women, Welfare, and Law: Global Perspectives.

You may also take option modules from other intensively taught LLM programmes such as Human Rights or International Economic Law, Justice, and Development.

The School of Law is an internationally recognised centre for critical and interdisciplinary legal research. It provides an exciting and innovative environment for a wide range of research with a strong theoretical and policy focus. The School is the home of Birkbeck Law Press and publishes Law and Critique: The International Journal of Critical Legal Thought.

We use technology, such as electronic learning environments, to enhance teaching and learning. Birkbeck Library has an extensive collection of books, journals and electronic resources in law and related disciplines such as economics, politics and sociology. You can also take advantage of the rich research collections nearby, including those of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Senate House Library, the British Library of Political and Economic Science (LSE Library) and the British Library.