Curriculum

The maximum course load in this English-taught programme is two courses. Below is the list of courses that you can choose from for the 2024 edition of this programme:

  • The Belgian Brewery Industry in  Global Context: Business, Economics, Culture and Innovation
  • Global Sustainability and Society
  • Internship
  • Strategic Climate Change Litigation: Exploring the Legal and Social Dimensions
  • Women’s Rights: Institutions, Discourses and Practices
  • Cybersecurity and International Relations
  • The EU’s Approach to Democratisation and Human Rights

Course descriptions

BUS102G  The Belgian Brewery Industry in a Global Context: Business, Economics, Culture and Innovation

Belgium is not only home to the world’s biggest brewer, but in recent years has seen a rise of innovative micro-breweries and diversification of the beer market with potentially far-reaching implications for the business and economics of the brewery industry inside and outside the country. In November 2016, UNESCO even added ‘Belgian Beer Culture’ to the World Heritage List, highlighting the cultural importance and impact of the Belgian beer industry beyond pure business and economics. This course focuses on key principles and changes in the economics, marketing, production and innovation of the Belgian Brewery Industry in a Global Context. Taking the Belgian beer industry as a multi-faceted case study for studying core Business processes and developments in the field of the national and international beer market (including production, strategy, marketing and product innovation), this course also explores the impact of geography, culture and globalisation on Belgian beer businesses and their business strategies. The course includes company visits, guest lecture series and experiential learning and provides unique insights into the major shifts and changes of major the economics and business processes related to the brewery industry. In cooperation with key experts, this summer course will also include the possibility of learning the nuts and bolts of the beer brewing process itself.

 

BUS363G  Global Sustainability and Society

This course introduces the academic approach of Global Sustainability and explores how today’s human societies can endure in the face of global change, ecosystem degradation, resource limitations, and corporate social responsibility. The course focuses on key knowledge areas of sustainability theory and practice, including population, ecosystems, global change, energy, agriculture, water, environmental economics, policy, and ethics. This subject is of vital importance, seeking to uncover the principles of the long-term welfare of a reliant sustainable future. As sustainability is a cross-disciplinary field of study, the course will evaluate business, political, and legal issues facing communities, business, and organisations.

Prerequisites: BUS101G and HUM101G

 

INT381G  Internship

Working in a sponsoring firm or organisation, students undertake a 150-hour, semester-long project on a theme or topic related to their major. It requires students to work on-site at least 10/12 hours per week, keep a daily activity log and write a project report. 

Prerequisites: HUM101G, Students in their second semester of second year (SY1) or first semester of third year (TY1), good academic standing and approval by the Internship Committee.

 

LAW2016G  Strategic Climate Change Litigation: Exploring the Legal and Social Dimensions

We live in historic moments of strategic climate change litigation: domestic, regional and international courts around the world are adjudicating in landmark cases which aim to hold states, government actors and businesses to account for not fulfilling their responsibilities to effectively mitigate the climate crisis. These litigations, filed by civil society actors and individuals, increasingly feature human-rights-based strategies and hold innovative elements such as science-based causation, intergenerational equity, and extraterritorial accountability of duty-bearers. Moreover, strategic litigations often promote social change by raising awareness and inspiring further cases around the world.

With a holistic approach, this course fleshes out the intersectionality of human rights-based implications in climate change law and litigation. By exploring recent and pending cases globally, the course will assess legal tools and practices that address the protection of human rights, as well as participation, access to justice and accountability – both in the petitions, and in the judgments. Students will benefit from a comprehensive and interdisciplinary insight to the challenges and opportunities in the legal framework, and the impact of case-law in the broader social-political context.

Through engaging in substantive (course-focused) interactions - such as comparative case analysis, moot court exercises, and discussions with climate activists and legal practitioners -, students can demonstrate and improve analytical thinking, express their ideas and explore justice-oriented responses to climate change from a sociolegal approach.

Prerequisites: LAW101G

LAW 2017 Women’s Rights: Institutions, Discourses and Practices

The course ‘Women’s Rights: Institutions, Discourses and Practices’ aims to provide students with a thorough understanding of two key domains of knowledge in the study of women’s rights: On the one hand, the origins, evolution and current features of the international human rights institutional framework concerning women’s rights. And on the other, how these institutions are mobilized in social discourses and practices in relation to a number issues of acute contemporary concern, including gender based violence, access to health care rights, access to justice, access to economic resources and equal pay, and participation in governance and political structures.

The course has three main components:

  • the first component offers an overview to the origins and evolution of the international human rights institutional framework concerning women. This component includes an introduction to gender perspectives and feminist theories and critiques of human rights law;

  • the second component deals with the current international human rights law standards and institutional architecture concerning women’s rights. This component also reflects on how concepts such as ‘intersectionality’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘stereotyping’ provide critical entry points to the analysis of women’s rights;

  • the third component focuses on the way in which women’s rights standards and institutions are mobilized at the level of discourses and practices in societies, in relation to a number issues of acute contemporary concern, including: gender based violence, access to health care rights, access to justice, access to economic resources and equal pay, and participation in governance and political structures. For this purpose, concrete case studies from several world regions will be presented and discussed. In this context, particular attention will be given to the analysis of culture, and the importance of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of women’s rights.

Prerequisites: LAW101G

 

POL 215G Cybersecurity and International Relations
How are computer networks affecting societies? How are information and communication technologies affecting our notions of space and time? What is the importance of cybersecurity for modern society? Which threats arise when ‘connecting the unconnected’? The course aims to give a general understanding of the transformational impact that emerging technologies have on our societies, consider the main threats to our democracies arising from the connected society, and provide students with essential awareness concerning the relationship between Cyberspace and international relations. For this, the course will briefly present the history of the internet and how it has evolved in the past decades, as well as the main ongoing technological advancements that have or will have an influence on our daily lives (AI, big data, IoT, quantum computing, etc.). During the classes, the students will get acquainted with fundamental concepts stemming from Cyberspace and the implications that this domain bears in our connected societies. Case studies including social-media platforms, cyber incidents, and other examples from the real-world scenario will be also presented. Finally, the course will provide a general understanding of international approaches to cybersecurity, as developed in the EU and other regions, to combine the content of the first part of the course with classic theories of international relations.

Prerequisite: POL101G
 

POL 233G  The EU’s Approach to Democratisation and Human Rights 

This course examines the historical evolution, policies and overall track-record of major European countries and the European Union itself in the field of democratisation and the promotion of human rights. The first part of the course provides a comprehensive overview of the main conceptualisations, debates and core issues related to human rights and democracy promotion. The second part of the course consists of a critical analysis of both the internal and external human rights policies and democratisation efforts of the European Union and major European states.

Prerequisite: POL101G

 

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