The ILLS was created for promoting Democracy and the Rule of Law in the Era of globalization in an innovative way through the understanding and divulgation of hot legal issues and the development of skills for Students, Professors, Researchers and Legal Professionals in the International and Comparative Legal fields. Besides its Courses, Seminars and Research programs ILLS has been active in Projects of International Aid and Cooperation Development.
COURSES
Introduction to U.S. Law
Abroad overview of the U.S. legal system, introducing to European Law students how Civil law differs from Common law and how the U.S. common law system differs from the English common law system. After an introduction to the concept of federalism, the students make an approach to U.S. sources of law and are given practical examples of how to work with statutes and cases in the U.S. legal system in workshops, emphasizing in crucial fields of US Law like Contracts, Torts and Personal Responsibility.
Professors: Prof. Nathalie Martin and Prof. Mary Leto Pareja. School of Law of the University of New Mexico. Syllabus: Day 1. Introduction to Common Law and the U.S. Legal System. Day 2. U.S. Constitutional Law, Part 1. Day 3. U.S. Constitutional Law, Part 2. Day 3. Common Law Workshop, Part 1. Day 4. Common Law Workshop, Part 2. Day 5. Contracts. Day 6. Day Torts and Personal Responsibility Day 7. Common Law Workshop, Part 3. Day 8. Review; Questions and Answers. Day 9. Final Exam.
Overview of European Union Law
The goal of this course is to give American Law Students a general overview of European Union Law in a comparative way with the Structure of the Federal-State US Law. Starting with a comparative approach between U.S. Federal State history and the history of the European Union. The we deal with a comparative approach to the main Institutions in both systems, the Sources of Law (State and Federal-Communitarian) and how EU laws affect member states and citizens internally, and how it affects externally to individuals and companies who want to do business with the EU and its member States
Professors: Bruno Aguilera Barchet, Maria Pilar Trinidad, Angeles Cano Linares, Guillermo Guerra Martín, Enrique Navarro Contreras, Flora Calvo Babío, Elena Pineros.
Syllabus: Day 1. U.S. and European Integration: a Comparative Approach. Day 2. Institutions and Powers of the European Union. The European way: The Community Method or step by step integration. Day 3. Objectives and Values of the European Union. Day 4. The Competences of the EU. Sources of Law: Interaction between EU Law and National Law. Day 5. Institutions of the European Union. Day 6. Legal instruments and nature of the EU Law. Day 7. Fundamental Rights and European Citizenship. Day 8. The four basic freedoms: Free Movement of Goods, People, Services, and Capital. Day 9. Historic development of the jurisdictional protection of the EU Law: the European Court of Justice. Day 10. Freedom of Establishment: Corporate Law in the European Union. Day 11. Freedom, Security, and Justice Area. EU Migration Policies. Day 12. Common Foreign and Security Policy. Day 13. Arbitration and Mediation in the EU: Alternatives to Courts. Day 14. EU response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In the United States UNM Law School in the course 2018-2019 we participated in the course «Comparative and Historical Legal Perspectives».
In France we created a double degree program in French and Spanish Law with the University of Paris-Est Créteil aiming at forming International Jurist.
COMPARATIVE LAW RESEARCH PROGRAMS
The IILS research programs are centered in hot legal issues that are crucial in our societies in the 21st century. Actually we are working mainly in four fields : Consolidating the Rule of Law, Law and Society in the Era of Algorithms, A Legal Approach to the War on Drugs and The rising of Animal Law.
Consolidating the Rule of Law
The program deals with enhancing European young people’s awareness of how the Rule of law is being jeopardized in the European Union by rising populisms and the threat of world powerful dictatorial regimes that pretend their authoritarian systems are most effective to face globalization. Remembering the essential features of the Rule of Law and how it works is the only way to maintain this basic principle of European integration in a world where democracy is in danger.
Law and Society in the Era of Algorithms
So Far Law has been a Human affair. Essentially a common fiction that has allowed us to stay together into powerful collectives. But technological revolution has changed all that and in the 21st Century the greatest danger sapiens faces is that the technical instruments that have endowed us with supremacy have reached such a point of perfection that they could spin out of control, backfire on us, their creators, and end up enslaving us. What are the legal consequences of the development of AI, robots, cíborgs and Human enhancement. Are we Sapiens bound to disappear as it was the case of Neanderthals? Can Law prevent this to happen?
A Legal Approach to the War on Drugs
Today «drugs» are a taboo. For a large part of public opinion it is one of the most malefic plagues of Humanity. And this is why, simply put, a large majority considers they should be banned and fiercely prosecuted. But this extremely negative vision of drugs is relatively recent. For most part of human history using drugs was not a big deal. 100 years ago drugs were not demonized or criminalized, you could buy them freely in pharmacies or drugstores, and there was no intoxication and no overdose’s deaths. Because there was no adulteration of psychoactive substances. The worst part of it is that War on drugs has been useless. Billions of our taxes have been spent in this at least incompetent war, that not only has not wiped out drugs, but, on the contrary, has increased its consumption, provoking amazing individual pain and social unrest. From a Legal perspective the War on drugs is threatening our cherished Rule of Law, one of the main pillars of our Western Liberal Democracies. On which constitutional bases the State can restrict our liberty to take drugs? On what ground the Government can decide freely which drugs are legal and which aren’t?
The rising of Animal Law
Today many consider humans and animals two different, separate and distinct categories of living beings. As a general rule, humans consider animals inferior to them, and consider their subjugation normal, natural and ethical. This prevailing belief is, as is to be expected, clearly reflected in the law. There was a time, however, when these lines were not clearly drawn, if they existed at all. Now there is a growing feeling towards protecting animals from cruelty, on the bases that they are not objects but sentient beings. The principle of equal consideration means more and more than animals, like Humans should be protected by law as full legal subjects.
LAW AND HUMANITIES
1. PROGRAM «LAW FOR ALL: A TRANSVERSAL APPROACH TO LAW: THROUGH LITERATURE».
It is clear that studying at a law school is essential for those who want to become professional jurists. However, it is reasonable to ask «What about everyone else? Everyday people. Don’t they have a «right» to understand the law? Should law continue to be a province restricted to a small circle of insiders? Or, on the contrary, is it possible, and event desirable, to reveal the most distinctive and essential features of the law to a broader audience?
This appeal is more relevant than ever, as the law is an everyday part of our lives. From the cradle to the grave (and even before being as foetuses, under the principle of nasciturus), and even after we die (our wills having legal effects) we are surrounded by the law. Thus, I believe it very worthwhile for us to understand what the law says, and what it means, if only so that our politicians, and the powerful (who have enough money to hire legions of lawyers) do not trample upon or deceive us.
In light of the foregoing, should the law remain exclusively confined to university classrooms? It is clear that it should not. This is why is so important to offer an amenable approach to the legal realm, one shunning the elitism typical of legal treatises, spurring one of the 20th century’s most important legal philosophers, Britain’s H.L. Hart (1907-1992) to advocate for the «demystification of law».
We propose to nurture an understanding of the law, not so much by drawing upon essentially scholarly, academic works, but rather through more accessible and effective sources, including not only literary texts and references, but also elements of all kinds of «works of art», in the broadest sense of the term, that I believe can convey the essence of a legal question more directly to my readers.
The idea is to develop a method of transversal approach to Law from a large cultural background that will ease Legal understanding for everyone not having a Legal Education.
International Seminars:
The first bulk of the above mentioned transversal approach to Law has been the establishment of a group of six universities for working on the topic Literature and Law.
The Round Table International Seminar «Understanding Hot Legal Issues through Literature» Celebrated on 24th and 25th of March 2022 in the Faculty of Social and Legal Sciences of the University Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid. With the participation of Alberto Godioli from the University of Groningen, Andrew Bricker and Elisabeth Amann from Ghent University, Theodora Tsimpoukis from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Paul Stewart from the University of Nicosia, and Bruno Aguilera-Barchet and Inés García Saillard from University Rey Juan Carlos.
2. OTHER ACTIVITIES RELATED TO HUMANITIES:
Reading Club IEJI: Welcome into a new reading experience!!!
The Institute of International Legal Studies, in its constant quest for including multidisciplinarity, has established since 2017 a Reading Club, called «Club de Lectura IEJI» where classic and contemporary books are read and commented twice a month.
Coordinated by Inés García Saillard, IEJI’s Activities and Project Coordinator and Research Assistant, it is structured by themes that go from issues on literary creation to a season focused on American Literature.
The main objective of the Reading Group is to grasp a good knowledge of selected books and to teach how to approach literary works in enjoyment and self-opinion.
A blog has especially been created for the Reading Club which contextualizes the selected author.
Film Club IEJI: Cinephilia and debate combined
Created as an extension of the Reading Club, the Film Club has nonetheless acquired its own personality and is now a well-established IEJI’s activity. Coordinating by Inés García Saillard, it combines film screening with a later debate. Usually in combination with Reading Club’s program, it aims to integrate multidisciplinary favoring debate and reflection on contemporary issues.
Debate is particularly enticing and it provides participants with a solid culture on history of cinema and teaches them to view cinema as part of cultural studies. Film Club IEJI is structured by themes and aims to approach cinema in an enjoyable, participative and argumentative way.
INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
The ILLS cannot overview the fact that in a World that changes so fast, two-thirds of humans live in poverty. This is why we have participated in Programs of Cooperation, essentially in the line of strengthening of the Rule of Law in the field of International Cooperation in Africa, Asia and America. Because without an efficient Legal System economic growth is impossible.
In Mauritania he developed several programs. On Women empowerment from 2006 to 2008, the program «Rule of Law and Women in Mauritania» for the education of women candidates to legislative and local elections. And support and counsel for elected women in parliament and municipalities. On Decentralization on 2009 and 2010IILS published the «White Book on decentralization in Mauritania» in collaboration with the Mauritanian Ministry of Home Affairs and Decentralization for consolidation Democracy in Mauritania. On Immigration ILLS collaborated in the creation of the Nouadhibou Municipal Immigration Department, as this municipality attracts an increasing migrant population from Sub-Saharan Africa. On Justice and Human Rights ILLS developed the Program «Training Parliamentarians on the Mauritanian System of Justice» in collaboration with the European Union Delegation Program «Strenghtening and rehabilitation of the Mauritanian System of Justice aiming at the consolidation of the Rule of Law».
In Vietnam we collaborated with the Ministry of Justice in the reform of the Vietnamese Notarial System. We also established teaching programs with the Hanoi Law University and the Ho Chi Minh City University of Law.
In China we taught some orientation courses in 2019 and 2020 in the Shanghai University. In Latin America the ILLS organized for several years a Master in International Cooperation and Development in Latin America, assuring the training of futur professionals in the domain of cooperation in this geographical area.