LLM Employment Law

The LLM Employment Law degree consists of 180 credits including a compulsory writing project worth 60 credits. The writing project can be either a supervised dissertation or work placement. The remaining 120 credits will be gained through six 20 credit modules, four of which are compulsory and two optional.

• • Law and Policy of the World Trade Organisation (20 Credits) - Compulsory This module is designed to provide students with a thorough understanding of global trade regimes through an overview of globalisation and contemporary international economic relations; the regulation of international trade by the WTO; and the relationship between international trade, harmonisation of the law and trade-related issues.
  • Legal Research Skills (20 Credits) - Compulsory

    This module aims to ensure that students are equipped with essential skills for participating successfully in their LLM degree programme, by offering instruction at an appropriately advanced level in legal research skills coupled with practical tasks in analysing legal sources and in making presentations in suitable academic formats in English. The module adopts learner-centred instructional style, combining exposition with exercises, discussion and self-directed learning in a series of workshops supported by online resources.

  • Dismissal Law (20 Credits) - Compulsory This module aims to provide an understanding of the way in which the law of contract applies to the termination of the employment relationship in the UK and assesses the practical impact of statutory rights. It also provides an understanding of how the law affects workplace rules and procedures relating to the termination of employment. The module encourages a critical approach to legal regulation by examining the social and political context in which contracts of employment are terminated in the UK.
  • Individual Employment Law (20 Credits) - Compulsory In this module you will gain an understanding of the way in which the law of contract is applied to the employment relationship and assesses the practical impact of statutory rights on the operation of the contract of employment in the UK. It also provides an understanding of the manner in which the employment relationship can be formed and varied and creates awareness of how the law affects workplace rules and procedures relating to employment protection. The module encourages a critical approach to the legal regulation by examining the social and political context in which individual employment relationships operate in the UK.
  • UK and European Anti-Discrimination Law (20 Credits) - Compulsory Equips students with a broad knowledge of anti-discrimination law in the UK and in the EU and how these two bodies of law have influenced and are influencing each other. The different forms of discriminatory conduct, the aims of equality law and a number of grounds of discrimination will be examined, as well as positive action, multiple discrimination, equality mainstreaming duties and precarious work and vulnerable workers.
  • Dissertation (60 Credits) - Compulsory The module provides students with an opportunity to demonstrate advanced-level legal research skills and understanding in writing a dissertation on a topic proposed by the student and approved by the module leader, drawing as appropriate on knowledge and skills acquired in earlier LLM modules.
  • International Organisations and International Dispute Resolution (20 Credits) - Compulsory This module aims to provide students with an understanding of the rules and principles of International Law and International Relations to the extent that these are relevant towards explaining the legal personality and activities of International Organisations. Special emphasis will be placed on defining the role of International Organisations in the settlement of international disputes including in relation to their involvement in armed conflicts. The course will provide advanced conceptual insights into the legal, political and structural issues that underpin dispute resolution at international level within International Organisations through a thematic focus on issues such as labour, trade, title to territory and international peace and security. The module will enable students to think strategically about different means to settlement of disputes and their applicability to existing or potential conflicts.
  • Law of the International Sale of Goods (20 Credits) - Optional

    This module focuses on the most central channel through which international trade takes place: the sale of goods. It deals with two consequential legal regimes, English law and international law, principally the UN Convention on the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Of particular value to those students interested in commercial practice this module presumes familiarity with the principles of contract law and extends these into the international arena with sustained attention given to express and implied terms, the rights and obligations of buyer and seller respectively, remedies, description and quality, carriage of goods, insurance and re-insurance and the impossibility of performance. The module critically compares English law and CISG and increasing tendencies towards convergence between national legal regimes and international treaty law in some but not all areas of the cross-border trade in goods.

    The module aims to increase the students’ ability to understand and to organise for themselves a range of disparate views from practitioners and scholars pertaining to the international sale of goods. It will advance students’ research skills with an emphasis on critical analysis of legal materials such as English, European and other international case law, treasty law and commentary. It aims to enhance the students’ ability to think through the practical, policy and economic implications of legal regimes enabling (or impeding) trade and transactions between parties divided by or purposely straddling legal and geographic boundaries. It expects students to go beyond synthesis to the competent formulation and vigorous defence of their own positions on best practices and on the state of national and international legal regimes, both in written work and in discussions with others.

  • Work Integrated Learning (eligible students only) (60 Credits) - Optional The module aims to enable students to apply theoretical knowledge and research to anticipate and respond to challenges in a selected workplace experience. The workplace experience may be undertaken as an internship negotiated by the student or in their current workplace or an existing voluntary role. It also aims to foster sustainable long term learning by requiring students to take responsibility for their own learning, design and negotiate learning goals and make informed judgements about their performance across the programme of study. The module asks students to engage as active subjects in the assessment process, thus enhancing the capacity for transofmrative learning. By selecting a topic of interest grounded in the workplace experience the student will demonstrate reflexivity, self-regulation and self-assessment in their journey towards personal and professional development.
    
    eligible students only: the module can be taken instead of the Dissertation upon CPC approval.
  • Foundations and Principles of International Law (20 Credits) - Optional Students will gain a systematic understanding of the core general rules and principles of international law. Knowledge of this conceptual and legal framework is particularly recommended for those enroling on other specialised LLM courses with an international dimension. The course seeks to enable students to analyse, critically evaluate and provide authoritative commentary on how international law impacts international relations and contemporary concerns such as globalisation, the use of armed force, terrorism, poverty, governance and the regulation of ownership over territory.
  • International Human Rights Law (20 Credits) - Optional To analyse the international human rights law framework under the United Nations and assess its monitoring procedures and efficacy, engaging the complementary America, African and Asian regional systems. Students will be required to reflect on challenges to the implementation of international human rights law globally, as well as engage strategies that advance thematic and country-specific elements of the human rights bodies under the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The module will involve critical research on international human rights mechanisms, including treaty-based and Charter-based bodies, as well as regional commissions and courts. The aim is to reach a comprehensive understanding of the full range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, and the interaction between domestic, regional and international law in their protection, realisation and fulfilment. Students will be tasked with evolving a rights-based analysis to identify and address gaps that contribute to widespread contemporary global rights violations.
  • International Commercial Litigation and Arbitration (20 Credits) - Optional

    This module will bring the student up to date with contemporary issues, legal problems and emergent changes in the practice and management of commercial cases that cross jurisdictional lines and may raise conflict of laws questions. It will extend from the jurisdiction of England into European and international jurisdictions. In particular it considers the use of arbitration for expediency and cost savings by medium and large scale enterprises operating within multiple jurisdictions. The module aims to familiarise the student with the original intentions of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) as an alternative to litigation, and to critically examine the ways in which arbitration has begun to converge towards procedural and disclosure rules more closely resembling those of traditional court-based litigation – a tendency that is especially apparent in complex international commercial arbitration.

    The module aims to increase the students’ ability to understand and to organise for themselves a range of disparate views on current debates in legal and ADR practice and scholarship. The module will advance students’ legal research skills, with an emphasis on critical analysis of legal materials. It aims to enhance students’ ability to discern strengths and weaknesses in scholarly materials in allied disciplines (such as economics) where these assist the study of law. It expects students to go beyond synthesis to the competent formulation and thoughtful defence of an original position on these debates in their own written work and in discussions with peers and the instructor.

  • UAE & DIFC Employment Law (20 Credits) - Optional Provides an understanding of the way in which employment relationships are regulated in the UAE, through an analysis of the basic elements of the UAE Labour Law and the DIFC Employment Law, which respectively govern employment relationships in the UAE and the DIFC freezone that operates in Dubai. The module assesses the practical application of the employment contract on the employment relationship and the practical impact of statutory rights. It also provides an understanding of the manner in which the employment relationship is formed and varied and creates awareness of how the law affects workplace rules and procedures relating to employment protection. The module encourages a critical approach to legal regulation and focuses on the unique double-jurisdictional context of Dubai allowing students to evaluate and undertake a comparison of two employment law structures that co-exist in Dubai.
  • Migration Theories and Approaches (20 Credits) - Optional This module aims to provide a critical understanding of the historical and contemporary geopolitics and globalisation of migration and the theories and approaches used to explain these processes in the 21st century. The module critically reviews the increasingly complex frameworks that have been developed to explain the economic, social and political transformation brought about my migratory processes, such as transnationalism; social divisions such as gender, class and race; different levels (macro, meso, micro) and types of movement (mobility, circulation, migration). It also questions the simple categorisations between different flows (labour, family, student, asylum and refuge) and geographical regions (Global South, Global North) prevalent in much migration research.
  • Integrated Work and Learning (20 Credits) - Optional

    Please note this module is a barred combination with Work Integrated Learning.

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    This practical experience module provides the means for students to link academic work with ‘real world’ work experience related to their specific programme. The aim is to enable the student to conceptualise the relation of theory to policy decisions within the wider world context. This module aims to develop and embed specific key skills which will facilitate career paths and employment in their chosen speciality. It is envisaged that the student will reflect upon and analyse areas of knowledge relevant to the placement learning experience and develop personal knowledge through review of learning