Basic course in legal scientific methods and interpretation

Transcription

1 Draft of 11 March 2015 Basic course in legal scientific methods and interpretation The 8-11th of June 2015 Responsible for this PhD-course are professor Ellen Margrethe Basse, AU, and professor Sten Schaumburg-Müller, SDU. Ellen Margrethe is the main responsible for the course the 8 th and 9 th and Sten Schaumburg-Müller is responsible for the course the 10 th and 11 th of June. Venue: Department of Law, Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, building 1410/1411, room 247 The purpose of this course The idea behind this course is to give the PhD students knowledge of useful methods related to legal research. The purpose of the course is to focus on the necessity of a good connection between your research aims, your research questions, your sources and your methods. We will discuss the special challenges related to empirical research, interdisciplinary approaches and different legal methodologies. The first day (8 th of June) will be focused on legal sociology, fieldwork in law and interdisciplinarity as part of legal research. Some scholars have highlighted the potential for incoherence in research based on legal pluralism, whereas others have pointed out the need for legal pluralism as part of a realistic description of the current legal situation. The second course day (9 th of June) will start with a description of the theories of legal pluralism on the interpretation of law. After that two young researchers will give you examples of existing international regimes that are based on different rationalities and they will explain the importance of the design of the decision-making bodies. The course on 10 th and 11 th of June 2015 will be focused on designs and methods. 1

2 Monday 8 th of June : Welcome and introduction Ellen Margrethe Basse, AU, responsible for the content of the course the first two days : Starting up the course with focus on how to ensure a good connection between your research aims, research questions, sources, theories and methods An introduction based on the challenges that you have focused on in your papers Ellen Margrethe Basse, AU Lunch : Legal Sociology Bettina Lehmann Kristiansen, AU : Field work in law Annette Olesen, SDU Coffee : Interdisciplinarity as part of legal research challenges and opportunities Ellen Margrethe Basse, AU and Cécile Pelaudeix, AU : PhD-fellows workshop on how to share experiences and ideas on ensuring the connection between research questions and methodologies : PhD-fellows presentations and plenum discussion Dinner 2

3 Tuesday 9 th of June : Legal Pluralism Jørgen Dalberg Larsen, AU : Plenum discussion related to the challenges connected with legal pluralism : The legal sources and other sources used by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court Lauren Neumann, AU : Coffee : Legal sources and other sources used in International Arbitration Dimitar Kondev, AU : PhD-fellows workshop with focus on the challenges that the participants have in respect to interpretation and the importance of the design of the decision making bodies (and the regulatory level they are related to: international, EU, and/or national levels) Lunch : PhD-fellows presentations and plenum discussion : How to include legal principles and soft law in research projects Hans Henrik Edlund, AU : Coffee : PhD-fellows workshop on the challenges and experiences that the students have with different sources hard law as well as soft law) : Plenum discussion Dinner 3

4 Wednesday 10 th of June : Welcome and introduction Sten Schaumburg-Müller, SDU : Legal dogmatics. Let s talk about it. On data gathering and data processing Sten Schaumburg-Müller, SDU : Coffee : Empirical legal research Jakob von Holtermann, KU : Workshop with a focus on how to do legal dogmatics? and on how to write about it? Lunch /16.00: Law and Economics Kim Østergaard, SDU Dinner 4

5 Thursday 11 th of June : Legal politics: When is the legal scholar doing legal politics and when is she/he merely trying to improve prevailing law? Jens Vedsted-Hansen, AU : Legal history Per Andersen, AU : Comparative legal method(s) Geoffrey Samuel, Kent : Lunch : Workshops on the use of legal history, legal politics and comparative law. Three groups. 20 minutes rounds with the three presenters, questions on the basis of your summary and assessment of assignment related to a text on legal research methodology (assignment no. 2, see below). 5

6 Assignments for PhD-fellows You will have to send in three papers. As assignment no. 1 please send in a short paper (not more than 1 A4 Page) in which you explain how you are working on a connection between your research questions, your choice of methodologies, and why you are not using some of the other methods mentioned in the programme for this course etc. Give a brief consideration on each method, and indicate why you think that it may be relevant or irrelevant to your project, and which difficulties if any you foresee. You are most welcome to end up with questions that you hope will be answered during the course. As assignment 2, you will have to make a brief summary of a text on legal research methodology (in English or the Scandinavian language you are familiar with and preferably - but not necessarily- something you have used or have considered using in your dissertation work) and in your paper you will have to give an assessment of its usefulness (or lack of it) in relation to your project. As assignment 3, further info will follow. The assignments should be send to [email protected] not later than the 29th of May :00 under the heading PhD course June Remember to indicate your name on the papers. Based on your papers and the issues coved by the course we will design the questions etc. that you will have to discuss in the workshop. Reading list We recommend buying or getting hold of Dawn Watkins and Mandy Burton (eds.), Research Methods in Law, Routledge, We will use 3-4 chapters from this book, which is available at Juridisk Bogformidling (the legal bookstore), Aarhus Universitet, building 1.328, room 014, from approx. 2 nd of June, price DKK 337,50 (for students). It is written for PhD fellows and one of the only books doing so. It approaches legal scholarly work from a common law perspective, which is a minor drawback for scholars working in other legal environment, but it is a lot better than nothing. Legal dogmatics and legal philosophy Sten Schaumburg-Müller, On Danish Legal Method. Forthcoming in Ingvill Helland and Sören Koch (eds.), title, Mohr Siebeck Publishers. (Will be forwarded to participants) Terry Hutchinson, Doctrinal research: researching the jury, in Watkins & Burton (eds.) Research Methods in Law. Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK Panu Minkkine, Critical legal method as attitude, in Watkins & Burton (eds.) Research Methods in Law. Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK Legal history Philip Handler, Legal History, in Watkins & Burton (eds.) Research Methods in Law. Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK 6

7 Field work Pierre Bourdieu, Understanding, Theory Culture Society 1996, vol. 13(2), pp (20 pages, scanning is OK according to CopyDan. Will be forwarded to the participants) Law and economics: Cento Veljanovski: "The Economics of Law", 2nd ed., chp. 4-5 (pp ). Available at (or google: Veljanovkis ecomics of law) Sonali K. Shah and Kevin G. Corley, Building Better Theory by Bridging the Quantitative Qualitative Divide, Journal of Management Studies 43:8 December 2006, pp Comparative law Geoffrey Samuel, Comparative law and its methodology, in Watkins & Burton (eds.) Research Methods in Law. Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK Interdisciplinary legal research Jeffrey L. Dunoff, and Mark A. Pollack (eds.) "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on International Law and International Relations. The State of Art, New York Cambridge University Press, 2012 (ISBN ) 7