Course List

Short Description of Compulsory Courses

Legal English

This practical course aims to introduce the English terminology of some major fields of law, supplemented by language development as necessary. The course will help students better understand the material of other subjects studied in the semester. It will offer plenty of opportunities to practice all four language skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing, mainly in a legal context. Requirements for completing the course include weekly homework assignments such as keeping a diary, writing essays and making presentations. A language test is given both at the beginning and at the end of the course to assess students’ development during the semester.

Basics of EU Law

This course offers a general overview of the core principles of the European Union (EU) legal system. The course focuses both on institutional and substantive law issues and explores the functioning of the unique creature of the EU.

Introduction to Hungarian history, culture and language

The course offers basic language skills and background information on Hungarian culture in a European context. The language component focuses on the essential grammar and vocabulary that is useful in everyday communicative situations. The topics on culture help students understand how people live and think in Hungary and they also provide a good basis for further cultural studies. This course gives some insight to the Hungarian constitutional history as well. We will examine the Hungarian constitutional state construction: the governmental system, the National Assembly, the local governments, the head of state and the jurisdiction.

Short Description of Optional Courses

A Brief Introduction to the Belt and Road Initiative

In this course students will be able to get a glimpse into the main purpose of the Belt and Road Initiative (originally called as One Belt One Road or OBOR, 一带一路) initiative, or more commonly referred to as the „New Silk Road”. We will examine the major countries concerned in this initiative, both Asian and European ones. The course itself will show the cultural backgrounds including both historical and where it is important religious aspects of the states which are concerned with this new policy. Furthermore each countries’ relation with China in the 20th and 21st century will be analyzed. The course focuses mainly on the international relations of OBOR countries, but questions of economy and also the legal framework of all the areas where the Silkroad Econonomic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road go through will come up as well.

Parties and Political Systems in Europe

The course provides an overview on the development of European political systems with a focus on the two pivotal institutions of political representation: political parties and elections. A wide range of different institutional configurations can be found on the continent, there are examples for monarchies and republics, presidential and parliamentary systems using majoritarian, proportional or mixed electoral systems for the selection of representatives. This diversity of political frameworks, together with a variety of distinct cultural and historical factors, produced an exciting landscape of parties and party systems in Europe. The course provides students with an opportunity to better understand how European political competition evolved in modern time, how institutional and social factors affected political parties, and how they deal with the challenges of the 21st century. The topic of the course the examination of the parties will indicate issues like the specificities of societies and political cultures, which will make it possible to understand the political cleavages and political differences, strategies in campaigns, and political party families.

Introduction to the International, EU and Hungarian Social Security Law

The course mainly deals with the general characterization of social insurance and social assistance schemes, the development of health care and pension schemes in Hungary, and the present regulation of the Hungarian Social Security System. The course will address the basic facts of social security: social security and social assistance schemes, legal aspect of social security, entitlement, insured persons, financing of social security and social assistance schemes. The course also deals with the Hungarian regulation of social security: payment of contributions, contribution rate, benefits, amount of benefits, revalorisation of benefits, rules of procedure. In addition, the subject gives an overview on social coordination, including the most important definitions and historical development. The subject also highlights differences and similarities between European coordination of employability and different social security schemes.

Introduction to the International, EU and Hungarian Labour Law

The subject introduces basic definitions and principles of labour law and employment-related legislations and regulation in the EU and Hungary. The subject also highlights differences and similarities between labour codes and regulations of different countries within the EU and on an international level.

Role of labour law and typology of employment relationship
Sources of labour law (International labour standards (ILO, COE, EU, etc. + Hungarian national norms, HLC)
Employment relations (employment law-individual issues)
Industrial relations (labour law-collective issues)
Atypical employment relationships (fixed-term contract, part-time job, TWA (temporary work agency), on-call contract, job-sharing, telework, etc.
Flexicurity concept in EU
Free movement of persons (workers) in EU (from labour law point of view)
EWC (European Works Council)
Domestic work (ILO C189 Convention, 2011)
Equal treatment in the workplace (types of discrimination, harassment, etc.)
Privacy/data protection in the workplace
Occupational safety and health
Labour inspection

Comparative Digital Copyright Law

This course aims to discuss some hot topics of the copyright law in the digital age, and of the internet law from a comparative law aspect. In the frames of the course students will be able to get familiarized with the common law solutions of the covered topics in the United States, and various types of the Continental European legal regimes, with a special focus on the law of the European Union.

Copyright Law Policy – National and International

Participants of the course will get familiarized with the leading international treaties of international private law and the basic concepts of international copyright law. The above treaties contain only the basic doctrines of intellectual protection. Therefore significant differences are visible between several nations’ copyright statutes. The cases, articles, excerpts of statutes and reports that are used during the course witness these differences. Due to the comparative aspect of the lecture the students can significantly enlarge their knowledge on the international copyright law through the understanding of the international multilateral treaties and the differences of the several legal regimes (besides the Common Law countries the course will introduce European, and some Oriental and African sources).

Topics of the lecture that students may have great interest in include the different aspect of copyright protection in the US and on the European continent (including the neighboring and moral rights protection); and basic doctrines of international private law.

Freedom, Security and Justice in Europe

After the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, European integration in the field of criminal justice (Area of Freedom, Security and Justice) gained new horizons: the new competences of the EU in this field promises new criminal policy on the European level. The course offers the possibility to understand the process leading to change in the following areas and with the following aims:

Understanding the major contemporary debates and theoretical perspectives on freedom, justice and security in a European context.
Transferring knowledge about the theoretic foundation of the FSJ area of the EU and about the institutional framework of the EU in the field of Judicial and Home Affairs and possible future developments.
Getting familiar with the role and activity of the Court of the European Union in this field.
To establish a general understanding of how European Law interacts with national criminal justice systems. Strengthening the comparative approaches in this field in favor of better analysis of the own legal structures.

International Organizations

The aim of the course is to provide the students with the knowledge of the basic principles and sources of public international law. Students get a comprehensive overview of the legal side of international relations, especially with respect to the treaties and responsibility of states, and the international settlement of disputes. The course introduces the general concept of international organisations under public international law, their types, structures and competences. It also deals with major global and regional international organisations, their activities and impact on international law, international relations, global politics and policy making.

Globalisation and Development

Students will be able to understand the concept of development and how the developing countries work and which factors hinder their development. They will be able to analyse the effects of underdevelopment on the macroeconomic and analyse the key factors in economic development. Furthermore they will be able to criticize the effects of international financial flows on economic development.

Economic fundamentals of European integration

The very origin of the process of European integration was based on an economic cooperation between the Member State and on underlying basic economic theories. The progress of the integration process was guided by these economic aspects (common market, four freedoms, and monetary union). In order to understand EU law and the political basis of the integration, it is imperative to explain these different economic phenomena and the theories describing them. The lecture presents the different economic perspectives and explains, from its economic logic, the progress of European integration.

Research and Development in the EU

By the end of the semester, students should improve in their knowledge in and understanding of the following: the importance of improving economic performance and competitiveness – and the main sources of this improvement; the concept of innovation; the role of human capital in economic performance and prospects; the role of technology in competitiveness and prospects; the main arguments in favour of investing in research, development, and innovation; financing research and development; successful management of research and development activities; R&D projects – all this presented through the case and more than 50 years’ experience of the European Union.

European Public Policy

This course will consider public policy from the political and legal aspects and examine its practical application in the continual evolution of the European Union. The course examines the historical development of important legal structures for determining the creation and implementation of different types of policy outputs and also introduces the students to various supranational, national and sub-national institutions and actors that contribute to the EU policy-making process. Which policy areas are governed at the supranational level and which by the member states. How the EU institutions ensure democratic accountability? The EU neither a typical international organisation nor a traditional sovereign state. The course explores how the policy processes work in practice by scrutinising developments in important internal and external policy areas and over time. This course familiarizes students with the political and normative effect of the EU in the wider European neighbourhood.

Contemporary issues of public administration: globalisation

Different issues of actual problems are discussed like globalization of public administrative law, international administrative law, new tendencies and developments in administrative science or happenings which create challenges to public administration and the law determining its structure and functioning. The aim of the course is to widen general knowledge of public administrative law by introducing students to different specific topics which are usually out of the scope of the classical obligatory module of legal studies. Different issues of actual problems are discussed like globalization of public administrative law, international administrative law, new tendencies and developments in administrative science or happenings which create challenges to public administration and the law determining its structure and functioning. All students are welcome to the course who are interested in actual challenges of public administration and recent developments in legal literature.

European Administration

The course aims to introduce students to the administrative structure of the European Union and how the European integration has influenced and modified the national administrative system, how these two cooperates and collaborates, thus how the so called European administration operates. The course provides general characteristics of the European Administrative Space in the European Union as it presents the history of its development. It explores the position of the EU administration as a hybrid between international organizations as the course focuses on the direct administrations, the institutions, organs and agencies of the EU, and indirect administration meaning the administrative capacity and structure of national administration. Furthermore, the importance of organizational structures, organizational processes and organizational cultures as well as legitimacy and efficiency is discussed. A specific example with Hungarian interest is also described for better understanding.

International Commercial Arbitration and Alternative Dispute Resolution in International Investment Transactions

The primary aim of this course is to provide students with a general overview of the basic themes of international commercial and investment dispute settlement, including issues like jurisdiction, applicable law and recognition and enforcement of judgments and arbitral awards. By the end of the course students will have an understanding of the functioning of international commercial and investment dispute settlement system. Participants will get acquainted with arbitration and mediation rules of leading international organizations including UNCITRAL, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. At the end of the course students will acquire the foundational knowledge necessary to understand institutional roles, legal structures and the process of arbitration. They will also have the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to creatively solve complex problems and to resolve conflicts.

Legal problems of international economic relations

The growing importance of international trade in the global economy has made international trade law one of the most important topics in international relations and international law. This course focuses on the international legal framework for international economic relations. It also addresses the new generation of free trade agreements (TTIP, TPP, CETA).

The course deals with the legal problems of the four channels of international economic relations: trade in goods, services, technology (knowledge) and investments. It examines the rules, principles and case-law of the GATT, GATS and TRIPS agreements and those of investment protection (bilateral investment treaties, ICSID etc.).

The course will cover political and economic arguments for and against free trade, the history of the GATT system and the creation of the WTO, and the core topics of the WTO’s complex set of rules on international trade in goods, services and intellectual property. These topics will include WTO dispute settlement, tariffs, quantitative restrictions, principles of non-discrimination (most-favored-nation treatment and national treatment), exceptions to WTO rules, agreements on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade, anti-dumping law and counter-veiling duties. In the domain of investment protection, the course covers, in particular, the concept of expropriation, including creeping expropriation, the fair and equitable treatment standard and dispute settlement.

EU Competition Law

The course examines the core concepts and principles of EU antitrust/competition law from a comparative perspective and gives a comprehensive overview. It takes an economic and public policy approach, elucidating the key-concepts of antitrust law in the field of restrictive agreements, dominant position and mergers. It aims at providing the students with a broad overview on the economic, legal and policy problems of EU competition law and policy and at equipping them with the conceptual tools that are necessary for analyzing competition matters. At the end of the course, participants will be able to identify and analyze the most important legal and economic issues in competition matters.

International Business Transactions

The course deals with international business transactions. Among others, it will cover issues like international sale of goods, international commercial arbitration, leasing, franchise, international payments, international transportation, distributorship contracts and international investments. At the end of the course students will acquire the foundational knowledge necessary to understand institutional roles and legal structures in the field. They will also have the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to creatively solve complex problems and to resolve legal conflicts related to the law of international economic relations.

Research Methods in Law

Research Methods in Law focuses on the different research methods in the field of legal sciences. Students will be introduced to six different methods (IRAC, Comparative Legal Method, Law-in-Context Method, Economic Analysis of the Law, Doctrinal Method, and Critical Legal Method). The topics will be enriched with a wide range of examples related to the law in the digital society.

Civil Sector and Law in Practice

Legal Clinic is an alternative educational method since it focuses on the practical part of the legal education instead of theory. The purposes of the Legal Clinic course are to prepare law student to law practice, improve professional ethics and other competencies, such as communication with clients, drafting legal documents. Furthermore, clinical legal education strengthens the emotional skills of the students. The structure of the seminar is divided into two main parts: theoretical and practical. Within the theoretical part, we deal with the methodology of legal clinic, the issue of discrimination (e.g. gender, race, age, and disabilities), child care system, data protection (GDPR), and client interviewing techniques. In the practical part, we go for a field trip. We will meet with the representatives of the NGOs who have partnership agreement with the legal clinic. Furthermore, we practice client interviewing (e.g. questioning the client, fact finding), drafting legal documents, case solving. Also, we organize a moot court to illustrate, how the judicial system functions.

Introduction to the International and European Environmental Law

The main aim of the course is to provide general knowledge about international and EU environmental law. In the last few decades, unprecedented changes have been identified globally, causing severe environmental concern for the States and the international community. Recognising global environmental problems motivated the international sphere to adopt universally accepted regulations for the most severe environmental concerns. Throughout the semester, the students can learn the basics of International and EU environmental law and policy, practice and improve their English skills, and work in small research teams. The course includes roundtable discussions, working group panels, and student’ presentations to involve the course participants as much as possible. There is no need for previous knowledge of international or EU Law. Although, the course requires a minimum level of English (especially communication skills, level B1).

The main topics of the course are the following:

The history of International and European Environmental Law and policy
The main sources and principles of International and European Environmental Law
The responsibility for environmental harm
Environmental dispute settlement procedures
Sectoral areas of Environmental Law
Relevant case studies and special areas of Environmental Law (ex. the Aarhus Convention, CITES, wildlife crime, access to justice at environmental matters)
Students’ research presentations and discussion

Updated: 1 February 2024