International Law & International Humanitarian Law
Geneva has long been one of the world’s capitals of international law. The presence of the United Nations, the World Trade Organization and many other international organizations and NGOs make it a buzzing place in the field. This breeding ground naturally led to the focus and strength of the University of Geneva in international law. This summer course provides one of the easiest ways to have access to that world.
This course is made for students who are intrigued by international law or marvel at its day-to-day interactions with international politics, affairs and business. This is the opportunity for such students to get a crash course to introduce them to this fast moving, intellectually thrilling and profoundly humane field of the law. The course is shaped so as to bring out the best of current issues in international law, while remaining accessible to non-specialists and seeking to broach the main principles of “International Law 101”, so as to allow enthusiasts to go further.
At the end of this course, participants will have a general understanding of some of the cutting-edge issues in international law today. This will allow them to either orient their future studies or refresh and extend existing knowledge.
*Information regarding the application : The Reference Letter must be signed by the referee and written no more than one year in advance. Letters that are not specifically adressed to the GSS will not be accepted.
The 2022 programme comprises the following courses (subject to minor modifications and adjustments):
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WEEKS 1 and 2: 27 June - 8 July 2022
SUMMER SCHOOL ON INTERNATIONAL LAW (Module 1: M1)
Foundational courses:
- Sustainable development
- Non-state actors
- Politics of International Law
- International dispute settlement
Specific insights:
- International investment protection: a failed experiment?:
- The challenge of climate change
- The South China Sea Dispute
- International law and diplomats
- International law and Gender
Equivalence of 6 ECTS
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WEEK 3: 11 - 15 July 2022
ADDITIONAL MODULE ON INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW (Module 2: M2)
Course content:
- International Humanitarian Law today
- Refugee law
- Challenges of the International Criminal Court
- Terrorism
- Targeted killings
- International humanitarian law and human rights
Equivalence of 3 ECTS
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WEEKS 1, 2 and 3: 27 June - 15 July 2021
SUMMER SCHOOL ON INTERNATIONAL LAW & ADDITIONAL MODULE ON INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW (Module 3: M3)
Equivalence of 9 ECTS
1 week
UNIGE students : CHF 200
All others : CHF 800
2 weeks
UNIGE students : CHF 250
All others : CHF 1'600
3 weeks
UNIGE students : CHF 300
All others : CHF 2'100
Course Directors:
Doctor Elena Cima
Lecturer in International Law
University of Geneva
Elena Cima is a Lecturer in International Law at the University of Geneva, where she teaches courses on international environmental law, energy law, and investment law.
She holds a PhD in International Law from the Geneva Graduate Institute, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Milan and an LL.M degree from Yale Law School, where she was editor of the Yale Journal of International Law. She also supervises several international environmental and economic law clinic projects at the LLM Program in Public International Law at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
She has published in several peer-reviewed journals on international environmental law, as well as on the interface between international environmental law and trade, investment, human rights and energy law, and has recently published a monograph with Brill entitled From Exception to Promotion: Rethinking the Relationship between International Trade and Environmental Law.
Elena often participates in international treaty negotiations and arbitrations in relation to climate change, water, trade and investment law.
Professor Thomas Schultz
Graduate Institute, Geneva
University of Geneva
Thomas Schultz is Professor of International Arbitration at the University of Geneva since 2018. He is also on the faculty of King’s College London. He was previously a Swiss National Science Foundation Research Professor (Professeur Boursier) in international law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and a Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow at the same institution. His research covers a range of topics and approaches in arbitration and dispute settlement, including doctrinal private and public international law, empirical studies on investment arbitration, analytic and continental legal philosophy applied to key arbitration concepts, sociological perspectives on commercial arbitration, political systems theory in international arbitration, and law and literature perspectives on dispute settlement. His work has been awarded the Jubilee Prize of the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences. He is also the founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement and the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of International Arbitration. He is the author or co-author of four books on arbitration or dispute resolution (three of which he had published by the age of 30), and is working on four more.
Ines Mesek
Coordinator of the Geneva Summer School in International Law and International Humanitarian Law
University of Geneva
After obtaining her bachelor's degree in Law and her master's degree in International and European law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva, she has completed her legal training with an LL.M. in International law (with a specialization in international economic law) at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in 2018.
Parallel to her studies, she has acquired a professional experience in a law firm in Geneva and in a law firm specialized in international civil aviation in Nyon.
Submitted by Margaux Descheemaeker, Ghent University, Belgium - 2022 Edition of IL & IHL
I am extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to attend the Geneva Summer Schools, participating in the course "International Law" hosted by the University of Geneva.
It was a pleasure learning about a broad range of interesting and important topics such as global health, the politics of international law, climate change, artificial intelligence in war, and ocean governance.I am looking forward to implementing all the valuable information I have gained into practice!
Submitted by Sabina Dalipova - 2015 Edition of IL & IHL
I participated in 2015 and it I got my first international law experience out of if from Prof Makane Mbengue who let me help him as a student assistant during the summer school.