Qualification aims of the subject

In this part of the module students will examine the roles of law and private standard-setting in an international context and the differences between hard and soft law. This includes understanding the limitations of international regulation and standard-setting. Students will learn, for example, how the European Union functions as a transnational legal actor and sometimes as a pace-setter for international cooperation. They will also examine multistakeholder regulatory organisations such as the ICoCA. Despite the growing use of private security providers in a variety of contexts, there is only limited legal regulation of PSCs, although there are on-going attempts to use other regulatory tools to regulate the industry. In this section of the module students will examine the development of the international private security industry as well as recent attempts to regulate PMSCs at the international and national levels.
• The importance and the impact of international security regulation
• Legal research methodology including working with international treaties and case law
• Multilevel regulation of security issues: International law, EU law and national law
• The correspondence of internal law and international law
• Soft law and hard law
• Standard-setting in conflict resolution by international organisations and institutions
• Standard setting in conflict resolution by private institutions
• Limitations to legal regulation in a global environment
• Implementation and implementation problems of international laws and standards