DI131 - International Law in the 21st Century

Guidelines on drafting the case study

As per the syllabus, the evaluation for the course on International Law in the 21st Century
includes the submission of two case studies. The first assignment will be a take-home
assignment (15th October or 19th November, depending on students’ allocation) , that is
essentially meant to serve as an exercise for you in view of the final exam. The final exam
will take place on the 21st December 2022 in class.

Case study

The purpose of the exercise is to enhance your analytical and argumentative skills necessary
to understand/interpret international law; and to critically apply international law in
contemporary (although fictive) situations based on the assigned materials and class
notes/debates.

• Evaluation:

Each case study will be corrected by the professor and the teaching assistants, and a detailed
feedback will be sent to the student. The case study will be evaluated based on the following
criteria: 1) command and appropriate use of the assigned materials and class notes; 2)
knowledge of the law and its application/interpretation, including nuances and debates; 3)
coherence and correctness of the relevant legal arguments presented in the case study; 4)
coherence of the conclusions with the legal analysis; 5) compliance with formal
requirements.

• Format:

Please use Times New Roman, 12 pt., and single spaced.

Please return the case study in a Word format (.doc, .docx, or .odt).

Please title the relevant files as follows: SURNAME_NAME_casestudy1.

Please do not forget to include your full name, student number, and Graduate Institute
email address at the top of the document.

Please do not insert footnotes or bibliography. You can refer to the relevant reading material
by inserting the name of the author in brackets, indicating the relevant page (e.g. Cassese, at
12). For reference to case law, you can apply a similar format (e.g. ICJ, Nicaragua case, at
para. 6). Extra research is not required.

• Plagiarism:

Plagiarism is not tolerated and can have serious consequences in terms of your participation
in the programme. Make sure that you use quotation marks when you reproduce verbatim the
opinions or statements by others and make sure that you refer to them when you rely on their
views.

Schedule for the submission of the case study

Each student will receive the assignment of the case study on the Saturday morning following
the tutorial on the topic assigned (at 9 a.m.) and shall submit the case study within three
hours, 12 p.m. at the latest. The case study shall be sent in a word format to
anna.greipl@graduateinstitute.ch and irene.miano@graduateinstitute.ch. Late submission will
not be accepted and will be penalized.