Course Information
We are currently accepting applications for the Summer 2026! Application fees are non-refundable, regardless of the reason.
Curriculum
The program is designed to prepare students for practicing law in the globalized atmosphere of the 21st century by broadening their understanding of International and Civil Law. Four 3-credit courses will be offered; each student must enroll in two of the four courses offered.*
All courses comply with the standards of the American Bar Association, and the program has been approved by the Accreditation Committee of the ABA Section on Legal Education.
Although generally credits earned in an A.B.A. accredited program are completely transferable to your home school, it is unlikely that participation in a study abroad program for only one summer may accelerate graduation. Students are encouraged to check with their home schools and review the A.B.A. Standards for Approval of Law Schools, Rule 304 and Interpretation 304-4, if they desire to accelerate graduation.
*Students must choose one 9:00 a.m. course and one 11:00 a.m. course. The program will be limited to anywhere between 50 and 70 students, depending on hotel availability. Required casebooks and text materials must be purchased by the students at their expense prior to departure for Spain.
*Due to the accelerated pace of the curriculum program, most time outside of class from Monday to Thursday should be devoted to study. We will hold no class meetings on Fridays. Weekends are off for student travel at their own expense. However, every Thursday, all students will participate in a cultural activity organized and covered by our Program. And, additionally, every Friday or Saturday, the Program will also host an additional and optional excursion, paid for by the Program, for those students who prefer to remain on site during the weekends, expl0ring locally and better preparing for Monday classes. These may include a visit to the Spanish Supreme Court, attending a special entertainment event or museum, touring Spain’s oldest law school in Barcelona, and strolling through and having dinner in Segovia, known for its two-thousand-year-old Roman Aqueduct.
*Note that, in addition to attending your two courses, you and all other students will also jointly attend a 2-hour bonus lecture after lunch offered by an invited guest speaker (as scheduled on the program to be circulated in advance: sometimes only one day per week, other times two days per week) on a variety of topics in comparative and international law. These guests will be law professors, experts, and judges from Spain, other European countries, and the United States. Attendance to these bonus lectures is strongly recommended and may, at the discretion of the Program’s Director, also be required.
There is a maximum of 30 students per class. We understand that some courses may be more popular than others, but we cannot have an imbalanced program. This means that, once a course in a given block (9am-11am, 11am-1pm) reaches 30 students, the rest will go to the alternative one. You will be informed of what your actual courses will be as soon as we reach our overall student cap of 50 for the Summer and can work out the distribution going by who registered for what first.
Courses – Summer 2026
Regional Systems of Human Rights Protection
Monday – Thursday – 9:00 am – 10:50 am
Professor Francisco F. Martin
This course will address the procedural and substantive law governing the major regional human rights courts (viz., European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights, and African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights). This course also will cover the history, interpretive principles, and organizational structure of these systems.
Course Materials
Comparative Constitutional Law
Monday – Thursday – 11:00 am – 12:50 pm
Professor Jaime Olaiz-Gonzalez
This course will explore the evolution of different types of constitutionalism until their dramatic deformations over the last decade. To do so, we will differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive levels of analysis to frame our conversation at a prescriptive dimension. This distinction turns relevant because there are some cases in which doctrinal approaches toward political phenomena tend to categorize some types of constitutionalism as authoritarian, despotic, competitive, autocratic, among other classifications, that overall, are at odds with the classic conception of constitutionalism as a bulwark against the abuse and concentration of political power.
This course will also challenge the contemporary dominant narrative on constitutionalism(s), aiming at restoring the traditional notion of constitutionalism set forth in the Founding -that became extremely influential all over the world since the early 19th century until the Third Wave of Democratization, that a genuine constitutional order can only be deemed as such if it entails the effective protection of rights of the governed against the government and prevents the concentration of power in a single branch of that government that may lead to tyranny and despotism. Any other system predicating different basic premises, regardless of its designation, can be anything but constitutional.
Course Materials
Comparative Judicial Decision-Making
Monday – Thursday – 9:00 am – 10:50 am
Professors Colleen O’Toole and Keith Fisher
This intensive course explores the art and discipline of judicial reasoning across multiple legal systems. The course will utilize and analyze primarily U.S. interpretation as a foil for international judicial decisions. Comparing and contrasting methodologies and styles. Students will examine how judges interpret constitutions, statutes, and precedents through different philosophical frameworks, including textualism, purposivism, pragmatism, and moral interpretation. Comparative analysis will highlight distinctions among the U.S., European, and Middle Eastern judicial traditions, emphasizing how interpretive theory shapes case outcomes and legal legitimacy. The course combines class dialogue in interactive discussions with guest judicial/law practitioners and professors as guest speakers on zoom from various jurisdictions including but not limited to the U.S. Egypt and the UAE , case simulations, and comparative exercises designed to strengthen analytical, oral, and written reasoning skills.
Course Materials
Law, Science, and Policy: An Introduction to Jurisprudence
Monday – Thursday – 11:00am – 12:50pm
Professor Christian Lee Gonzalez-Rivera
This course introduces you to central topics of jurisprudence by examining Law, Science, and Policy, a jurisprudential framework developed by Harold D. Lasswell and Myres S. McDougal to enable both a realistic understanding and the normative shaping of law—domestic and international. Defining the latter as an ongoing process of authoritative and controlling decision-making, it is problem-oriented, contextual, interdisciplinary, and policy-oriented. Designed to produce solutions in the common interest, it employs a five-step method of analysis applicable to all kinds of social problems and displaying historical, scientific, and normative modalities of thinking. The framework seeks to build a public order of human dignity and flourishing, which can only be achieved if legal decision-making maximizes everyone’s ability to shape and share the things we all value: wellbeing, affection, enlightenment, power, wealth, respect, rectitude, and skill.
Course Materials