The mass movement of people across international borders is widely framed as among the most pressing challenges of the 21st Century. Globally, debates regarding immigration law and policy remain controversial political flashpoints. The purpose of this seminar is a critical examination of the international legal theory, doctrine, and practice of borders and migration, which are essential for making sense of national immigration regimes, and the contentious debates around them. An emerging body of critical scholarship is challenging the fundamental assumptions that underlie the law and political theory of borders and international migration, and that does so by foregrounding the ways in which colonial, neocolonial and other forms of empire have shaped contemporary borders. This seminar will introduce students to this emerging body of scholarship and to the applicable international law. We will consider borders as sites of racial, political, and other forms of injustice. We will also consider some of the legal arguments that have been made for decolonial, reparatory, abolitionist, and other approaches to reimagining borders. The seminar will introduce students to Third World Approaches to International Law--an approach to the study of international law that centers the mutually-constitutive relationship between European colonialism and foundational international legal doctrine. TWAIL examines international law as a (contested) historical and contemporary system of Third World subordination, and explores the possibilities of more just international legal futures. The seminar will also include Critical Race Theory analysis of borders and international migration. Public international law is not a prerequisite course for this seminar. However, students who have not taken public international law will be encouraged to do some additional assigned background reading in order fully engage with the seminar's central themes. The course will be evaluated based on attendance, class participation, reading responses and a presentation. A limited number of students will have the option of writing a long research paper in lieu of the reading responses requirement. After the term begins, a limited number of students enrolled in the course can transfer from section LAW 01 (two units) into section LAW 02 (three units), which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor.
2-3 units · Law Honors/Pass/Restrd Cr/Fail
The mass movement of people across international borders is widely framed as among the most pressing challenges of the 21st Century. Globally, debates regarding immigration law and policy remain controversial political flashpoints. The purpose of this seminar is a critical examination of the international legal theory, doctrine, and practice of borders and migration, which are essential for making sense of national immigration regimes, and the contentious debates around them. An emerging body of critical scholarship is challenging the fundamental assumptions that underlie the law and political theory of borders and international migration, and that does so by foregrounding the ways in which colonial, neocolonial and other forms of empire have shaped contemporary borders. This seminar will introduce students to this emerging body of scholarship and to the applicable international law. We will consider borders as sites of racial, political, and other forms of injustice. We will also consider some of the legal arguments that have been made for decolonial, reparatory, abolitionist, and other approaches to reimagining borders. The seminar will introduce students to Third World Approaches to International Law--an approach to the study of international law that centers the mutually-constitutive relationship between European colonialism and foundational international legal doctrine. TWAIL examines international law as a (contested) historical and contemporary system of Third World subordination, and explores the possibilities of more just international legal futures. The seminar will also include Critical Race Theory analysis of borders and international migration. Public international law is not a prerequisite course for this seminar. However, students who have not taken public international law will be encouraged to do some additional assigned background reading in order fully engage with the seminar's central themes. The course will be evaluated based on attendance, class participation, reading responses and a presentation. A limited number of students will have the option of writing a long research paper in lieu of the reading responses requirement. After the term begins, a limited number of students enrolled in the course can transfer from section 01 (two units) into section 02 (three units), which meets the R requirement, with consent of the instructor.
Offered in Spring 2026 at Stanford University.