| Responsible Department | Institute of Food and Resource Economics | ||||||||||||
| Earliest Possible Year | BSc. 2 year to MSc. 2 year | ||||||||||||
| Duration | One block | ||||||||||||
| Credits | 7.5 (ECTS) | ||||||||||||
| Level of Course | Joint BSc and MSc | ||||||||||||
| Examination | Final Examination oral examination All aids allowed Description of Examination: oral exam on the background of synopsis written by the student Weight: 100% 7-point scale, external examiner | ||||||||||||
| Organisation of Teaching | forelæsninger og øvelser | ||||||||||||
| Block Placement | Block 4 Week Structure: C Løbende | ||||||||||||
| Language of Instruction | English | ||||||||||||
| Restrictions | none | ||||||||||||
| Course Content | |||||||||||||
| This course will provide students with fundamental knowledge of international law and governance in an international context with particular focus on promoting sustainability with particular regard to natural resource management, food, and veterinary health, including through the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a means to promote sustainable human and natural development in developed and developing countries. The course is offered as a combined bachelor-graduate level course. It addresses an audience of students from all national backgrounds with no or limited knowledge of law and legal institutions and/or governance. The course will provide students with basic knowledge of legal institutions and theories on new forms of law, international law and new governance in an international and national context, particularly with regard to participation, accountability and legitimacy. To exemplify this, the course will draw on CSR in various contexts of relevance to the main fields of study at the Faculty of Life Sciences and provide students with knowledge of the notion of CSR, its background and objectives with regard to sustainability, and modalities for implementing CSR through private self-regulation, public-private co-regulation and public regulation. Some of these emerging regulatory modalities are responses to the inadequacy of traditional international law to regulate non-state actors. This problem is exacerbated with globalisation and trade across boundaries. New forms of regulatory modalities to be covered in class include but are not limited to labelling (such as eco-labelling of foods or sustainable forestry labelling), Codes of Conduct and environmental and social impact reporting. This will allow students to understand and analyse actors and modalities involved in the creation of CSR schemes, such as public-private labelling schemes for sustainable forestry or safe and healthy foods, and discuss and analyse requirements to participation and accountability in order to propose solutions and promote various interests, such as those of producers, buyers, and regulators. To place the discussion on CSR regulation in a larger perspective, the course will also provide students with basic knowledge of conventional legal institutions and forms of law at national, EU and international levels, and insight into differences between hard (enforceable) law and soft law. It will provide students with insight into the emerging body of new forms of law, such as labelling schemes and other schemes intended to regulate natural resource management, food and animal health through public-private co-regulation or private self-regulation within schemes authorised by public authorities. The course will provide students with knowledge of the emerging theory on new forms of law and new governance in relation to strengthening private regulation to deliver societal objectives in relation to sustainability. It will also provide them with knowledge of regulatory strategies and opportunities for non-state actors such as industrial or civil society organisations to interact with public authorities in relation to the creation of CSR norms and CSR schemes at various levels of governance (national, EU, international and transnational public-private). | |||||||||||||
| Teaching and learning Methods | |||||||||||||
| The teaching method is a combination of lectures and exercises. Cases of CSR regulation at various levels of governance will be drawn on as lecture examples and cases for self-study throughout the course. In addition to examples of private self-regulation on CSR, the course will include national, EU, international and transnational level CSR schemes as examples of new forms of law and new governance. Among the latter the course will include Danish public and public-private initiatives with regard to strengthening corporate self-regulation on safe foods, EU initiatives to promote sustainable forestry, and international (including UN and World Health Organisation) initiatives to promote self-regulation in various sectors. | |||||||||||||
| Learning Outcome | |||||||||||||
| The main objective of the course is to provide students with fundamental knowledge of international law and governance in an international context with particular focus on promoting sustainability with particular regard to natural resource management, food, and veterinary health, including through the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a means to promote sustainable human and natural development in developed and developing countries. For educational purposes the objective is to provide students with the ability to prepare a written synopsis (brief essay) as a basis for the oral course exam. After the course students are expected to have the following: Knowledge: - Knowledge of conventional legal institutions and forms of law at international level, and differences between hard (enforceable) law and soft law - Knowledge of the regulatory capacity of conventional international law as a context for the development of new forms of public-private regulation and new governance - knowledge of theories on new forms of law and new governance, particularly with regard to participation, accountability and legitimacy - Knowledge of theories on new forms of law and new governance in relation to strengthening private regulation to deliver societal objectives in relation to sustainability - General understanding of the emerging body of new forms of law, such as labelling schemes and other schemes intended to regulate natural resource management, food and animal health through public-private co-regulation or private self-regulation within schemes authorised by public authorities - knowledge of the notion of CSR, its background and objectives with regard to sustainability, and modalities for implementing CSR through private self-regulation, public-private co-regulation and public regulation to promote self-regulation among producers - ability to describe basic features in labelling (such as eco-labelling of foods or sustainable forestry labelling), Codes of Conduct and environmental and social impact reporting - knowledge of regulatory strategies and opportunities for non-state actors such as industrial or civil society organisations to interact with public authorities in relation to the creation of CSR norms and CSR schemes at various levels of governance (national, EU, international and transnational public-private). Skills: - Understand the structure and regulatory capacity of international law and international law-making - Understand and analyse international law and governance factors leading to the development of new regulatory forms in an international governance context - understand and analyse actors and modalities involved in the creation of CSR schemes, such as public-private labelling schemes for sustainable forestry or safe and healthy foods - Identify and discuss challenges and requirements to participation and accountability of CSR schemes in terms of theories on new forms of law and new governance - discuss and analyse requirements to participation and accountability in order to promote various interests, such as those of producers, buyers, and regulators - identify and discuss benefits and drawbacks of soft law measures for CSR-regulation vis-à-vis hard law measures - Propose solutions to needs for private, public-private and public regulation of sustainability issues at various levels of governance - Propose concrete forms of CSR regulation to promote self-regulation Competences: - Cooperate with other students in exercising the above capacities in the context of specific cases (exercises) - Make simple analyses of regulation private, public-private or public schemes related to promoting self-regulation in the fields of natural resource management, food, and veterinary health in terms of forms of law and governance. | |||||||||||||
| Course Literature | |||||||||||||
| Reader/compilation of texts | |||||||||||||
| Course Coordinator | |||||||||||||
| Karin Buhmann, buhmann@life.ku.dk, Institute of Food and Resource Economics/Consumption, Health and Ethics Unit, Phone: 353-32282 | |||||||||||||
| Study Board | |||||||||||||
| Study Committee NSN | |||||||||||||
| Work Load | |||||||||||||
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