Law with French and French Law BA

Following your time spent living in a French-speaking country this advanced module will be your final step towards fluency. We'll help you continue to improve your oral and written skills using a wide variety of texts.

Your grammar expertise and vocabulary shall be deepened through the production of linguistic commentary and summaries. In addition, we'll help you develop translation skills. Your French writing skills will improve immeasurably as we translate into and out of French creative writing in different registers.

This module analyses the legal order established by the European Union (EU) treaties. It considers the law governing the establishment and operation of the EU, including the methods for enforcement of EU law.  This module also considers the substantive law of the European Union. It involves a detailed examination of the law relating to the internal market, and related areas of EU law. 

This module examines the conceptual context of trusts, and the requirements for the creation and validity of express private trusts and charitable trusts. This module also examines resulting and constructive trusts, the duties of trustees and the imposition of fiduciary liability, together with associated remedies.

Building on existing foundational knowledge (Foundations of Criminal Evidence), this module will provide opportunities for more specialist, advanced studies in criminal trial procedure and evidence, involving in-depth analysis of key topics with major theoretical, policy and practical significance, and drawing out interdisciplinary links to, eg, psychology, philosophy, criminology, forensic science and socio-legal studies.

Particular topics may include:

• Common sense inferential reasoning
• Covert evidence, entrapment and PII (including CHIS; special counsel)
• Testimonial witness evidence
• Identification evidence 
• Principles of examination-in-chief and cross-examination
• Hearsay and the right to confrontation
• Vulnerable witnesses ‘special measures’
• Previous sexual history evidence
• Bad character evidence
• Forensic science evidence and expert witness testimony 
• DNA profiling evidence and probabilities

The course is divided into four sections:

1. Basic Concepts and Guiding Principles: What are the principles which guide the courts in making decisions about children? What are the legal consequences of being a parent? Do parents have rights? Do children have rights?
2. Children and their Biological Parents: What are the consequences of parenthood outside marriage? What happens if parents cannot agree about how their children should be brought up? Where do the children live if their parents separate? How is the decision made? What is the position of the non-residential parent? 
3. Children and Third Parties – Guardians, Step-parents, Relatives, Foster parents and Adoptive parents: How can non-parents obtain parental responsibility for – or even become the legal parent of - someone else’s child? 
4. Children and the State: What state assistance is available to parents temporarily unable to care for their children? When can the state take children away from their parents?

The module will examine the range of social, political and philosophical questions raised by mass immigration to France in the post-war period. These questions will be tackled through historical analysis of patterns of migration and changing immigration policies, as well as through the study of relevant films, novels and theoretical texts which engage with questions of citizenship, identity and ethnicity. 

This module provides final-year students studying French as part of their degree with the opportunity to study in some depth eight contemporary French-language films that deal in different ways with the interaction between personal and political aspects of contemporary life.

The module will encourage students to engage with the films both thematically as texts that articulate important contemporary issues, and also formally as films that draw on specific cinematic techniques and make a series of aesthetic choices in order to engage with the personal and the political.

Content to be confirmed.

The module delivers a broad perspective over the legal issues which surround the development and use of information and communications technologies in relation to cybercrime, cybersecurity and online surveillance.    

In particular, it studies Internet crime in its various forms (piracy, hacking, viruses, denial of service attacks, offensive and harmful content, device misuse, phishing etc), against a range of domestic and international legislations.    

The module discusses critically existing responses to online activities in law and enforcement, while exploring themes and topics such as: information and network security online conduct in the information era conceptions of computer crime online jurisdiction content liability access to personal data Web 2.0 and cloud computing. Furthermore, it explores policies and practices of electronic surveillance and their impacts on digital rights and citizenship.   

This module invites students to critically engage with representations of apparently disruptive and transgressive French and Francophone women from determining moments in French history between 1789 and 1945, including individuals who were violent, who took up arms, were transgressive, broke laws, and were institutionalized, deported, and defamed in the press – all in the name of social justice. Examples include revolutionary Théroigne de Méricourt, who dressed as a man in order to fight for women’s revolutionary involvement and was institutionalised for madness, and Louise Michel, one of the women accused of setting devastating fires that gutted government and cultural institutions during the Semaine Sanglante of the Paris Commune.

Students will analyse case studies in the light of the dominant gender discourses of their time (during the 1789 Revolution, the Paris Commune, the Belle Epoque, and the First and Second World Wars), as manifest in cultural representation, such as press, literary and visual sources. Where possible, they will also study the voice of lived experience, via memoirs and works published by the women in question, in order to explore how their own perspectives interacted with representations of them.

Students will examine the case studies and work on a thematic research project in the second. For this, they will be invited to identify a theme pertinent to at least two of the case studies, in order to comment on the threads that link women’s militancy across centuries, but also to explore the extent to which ‘difficult’ women contributed to lasting change in women’s lives over time. Possible themes might include but are not limited to social class, gender and gender identity, (political) violence, mental ill health and perceptions of madness.

The module will give students the opportunity to consult digitized primary source material such as newspapers, books and imagery via archives such as the Bibliothèque Nationale de France’s collection, gallica.fr.

This year-long module is based on guided independent study of a chosen topic in the field of French and Francophone Studies for which supervision can be offered by the Department. Topics typically relate to a module taken in the second year, or to a module to be taken in the final year, and it is expected that students have some familiarity with the chosen field.

Dissertation topics in past years have included:

• The feminist and humanist aspects of Christine de Pizan's work.
• How Albert Memmi's philosophy of colonised identity is prefigured in his literary work.
• The representation of women in three novels by Dany Laferrière.
• The representation of women in the films of Jean-Luc Godard.
• The definition of malaise in the context of contemporary socio-economic and political issues in France.
• Presidential Power in the Fifth Republic.
• The urban landscape in surrealism.
• Translating humour from English to French.

Teaching takes place in the form of regular individual meetings with the allocated supervisor, and group meetings with the module convenor, centred more generally on research and writing skills.

Semester 1 is devoted to research, reading and planning, leading to the submission of a dissertation abstract, chapter outline and preliminary bibliography, as well as the presentation of posters. In the second semester, students write up and complete the dissertation under the continued guidance of the supervisor.

This module aims to introduce you to key aspects of French documentary cinema by considering a range of documentary cinematic techniques, and by looking at the ways in which documentary form has developed over time. The module examines the work of a range of filmmakers and explores the theoretical, socio-cultural and ethical questions raised by documentary cinema.

You will develop analytical tools that can be used to understand the different ways in which documentaries attempt to engage audiences and deal in sophisticated and often challenging ways with a range of issues.

Content to be confirmed.

The module examines the rationale for intellectual property rights and their commercial importance; the national, European and wider international dimensions of the legal regulation of intellectual property rights; and the law governing the acquisition, exploitation and infringement of copyright and allied rights, including the application of copyright law in the context of modern information technology developments.

Content to be confirmed.

Given the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ finding that approximately 1 million species of animals and plants are threatened with extinction, and given that a decline in abundance of native species around the globe of 20% has taken place since 1900, biological diversity is seriously in decline.

This decline is unprecedented, linked to anthropogenic threats, and driving ever more vocal public protests and direct action by groups like Extinction Rebellion. It is also taking place and continuing despite there being many international treaties in place to tackle the threats and problem.

This module sets out to examine the problem, and the legal response under the principal global treaties that are in place to protect wildlife and habitats.

This module seeks to deal with fundamental and complex issues of corporate law. In the beginning we will set 'the scene' by looking at various business mediums available while focusing on the distinction between private and public companies. 

We will examine how companies are formed, and the consequences of formation - discussing concepts such as the corporate legal personality and the corporate 'veil', and the phenomenon of the corporate group. We will also examine contractual and non-contractual liability of companies and those dealing with them; and finally we will consider various issues relating to shareholding and the share capital of companies.

Content to be confirmed.

This module explores how the Fifth Republic came into being and examines the problems of bedding in a regime that revolutionised French political culture without jettisoning the key features of the 'modèle républicain'.

We follow a chronological narrative of French politics between 1958 and 1969, and will also examine themes such as the ‘écriture de la constitution’, the clash of political visions and bipolarisation and its tensions. We conclude with de Gaulle's apparent act of 'political suicide' in 1969.

Content to be confirmed.

The module considers what role, if any, law can play in improving the material existence of the poorest on this planet.

You will examine the role of international institutions and national governments in the promotion of social and human development. Along with investigating the role played by specific development instruments, such as development aid and blended finance in the fight against poverty.

Through the module, you’ll consider how the concept of development has changed over time and look at the history and theories around development. The module also examines specific issues such as access to health and access to food, gender equality, and food security.

As a whole, the module offers students a critical insight into law's possibilities and its limitations as it relates to international development.

You will arrange and complete a 50-hour law related activity placement (approved by the module convener) to take place after the end of your second year of studies. Law-related activities, include, but are not limited to: work experience with a solicitor’s firm or barristers chambers or work as a paralegal, volunteering for a not for profit organisation such as Citizens Advice or a law centre,  or gaining pro bono experience in a legal context, including delivering public legal education presentations to the local community (for example, streetlaw sessions); working in-house in a legal department of a company, or trade union or other organisation,  advising individuals or groups on bringing and defending legal claims, or on non-contentious legal matters, providing advice and assistance on an area of law, including virtual internships.  

You are then required to produce a critical reflective report (and deliver an oral presentation) on the legal and professional skills developed, observed and acquired during the experience, together with a critical evaluation of the legal and wider contextual issues encountered on the experience).  

This module concerns the law relating to people in the psychiatric system. Issues - including hospital admissions, treatment, competency and guardianship, and advocacy on behalf of the mad - are discussed from a variety of perspectives including patient rights, social control, and medical humanitarianism. 

Underlying the module is the question of what madness is, how it is to be responded to, and whether the existing legal provisions are sufficient or appropriate. 

This module is designed to introduce you to the study of various forms of artistic work in relation to the political and social background of the French Revolutionary decade (1789 - 1799). A variety of works will be studied (theatre, opera, song, iconography, painting) in order to consider the reflection of contemporary events, the notion of politically engaged arts, and questions of cultural administration (theatrical repertory, representation, censorship and privilege).

Corporate insolvency gives rise to a number of fascinating and complex questions. Which assets can be claimed by the company's creditors? What should be done with them? How should the proceeds raised be distributed amongst the creditors? How should those responsible for the losses be dealt with? 

The module seeks to develop an understanding of the ways these issues are resolved by the current law. You will be expected to analyse and evaluate the law, and consideration will be paid to the real-world context in which insolvency disputes arise.

This module focuses on the theory and practice of two modes of audio-visual translation: subtitling and dubbing.

The linguistic, technical, and cultural theoretical underpinnings of subtitling and dubbing from French into English will be examined in detail, and students will be able to put the theory into practice using professional dedicated software.