Recap: Criminal Law

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/R_RecCL

Course Objective

(a) Subject specific Upon completion of the course the student should have knowledge of:The main actors and institutions in the fields of European and international criminal law;The (contextual) legal elements of a selection of ‘core’ international crimes;Fundamental principles of state coorperation in criminal matters under European criminal law;The legal frameworks of the European Arrest Warrant; Investigation Order; and the legal framework of Joint Investigation Teams;A selection of principal and accessorial modes of liability in international criminal law;A selection of grounds for excluding criminal liability in international criminal law;The principle of legality;Fundamental rules on sentencing in (international) criminal proceedings; (b) Academic learning outcomes Upon completion of the course the student is able to:Read primary legal sources, detect structures of legal reasoning and distinguish between principled and peripheral matters of law;Draft a trial brief;Articulate legal rules and principles and understand, jurisprudence and academic literature relating to those rules and principles as well as apply those legal rules and principles to cases. (c) Social and communicational learning outcomes:Plead criminal cases (mooting);Develop, articulate and present a legal argument;Discuss questions of law. (d) Study skills and professional orientationInterpret and apply legal rules and principles to factual circumstances (criminal law cases);Find relevant legal rules and principles, jurisprudence and academic literature for the construction of a legal argument;Select reliable sources to solve legal problems arising in the fields of international and European criminal law.

Course Content

This course is designed to bring together the various principles of criminal law that students were taught throughout the preceding two years of the ‘Law in Society’ programme, as well as introduce certain new aspects of substantive and procedural criminal law. This is done through the prism of two supranational legal fields: (i) International criminal law; and (ii) European criminal law. Students will be provided with a basic introduction to the subject matter of these two fields of law and their institutional frameworks. The course will provide students with a fictional case. Through the facts of this case, students will be taught and participate in a moot court exercise on a selection of legal theories that have been taught in the course (e.g. elements of international crimes and the foundations of state cooperation in criminal matters within the European Union as well as the interplay between domestic and international prosecutions of international crimes).

Teaching Methods

Knowledge clips: to be participated in by each student individually;Lectures: organized for the full group of students;Workshops: formed for groups of approximately 25 students, focusing on analysis of legal provisions and case solving;Moot Court preparation session (mandatory attendance): organized for the full group of students.

Method of Assessment

AssignmentMoot Court exercise

Literature

- R. Cryer et al., An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (4th edn., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)
- Klip, European Criminal Law – An Integrative Approach (4th edn., Intersentia, 2021)
- Additional scanned materials (articles and book chapters) uploaded on Canvas. Recommended for recap (revision) purposes:
- J. Keiler & D. Roef, Comparative Concepts of Criminal Law, (3rd edn, Cambridge: Intersentia, 2019).

Entry Requirements

At least 36 EC (6 courses) out of the following 8 educational components:
- Local theme: Defamation and Assault (6 ec)
- Global theme: Terrorism (6 ec)
- Local theme: Amsterdam and the Platform Economy (6 ec)
- Global theme: Multinationals and the Platform Economy (6 ec)
- Global theme: Global Migration Governance (6 ec)
- Local theme: Migration Law and the Nation State (6 ec)
- Global theme: Climate Change (6 ec)
- Local theme: (Un)sustainable Amsterdam (6 ec)