Birkbeck, University of London

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC LAW (INTENSIVE) (LLM)

This innovative LLM enables you to tailor your studies to your professional and research interests. You choose one of two critical pathways, which draw on cutting-edge critical research to examine contemporary issues and problems:

LLM International Finance and Economic Law (Intensive)
LLM International Economic Law, Justice and Development (Intensive).
LLM INTERNATIONAL FINANCE AND ECONOMIC LAW (INTENSIVE)
What is it about finance that makes it appear powerful? How does finance relate to different senses of law, norms and regulation?

The first time the concept of 'freedom' was written down, in Mesopotamia c.2400 BC as ama-gi, its use did not relate to liberty from tyrannical rule, but to freedom from debt-slavery. Why is it that from the first civilisations to the present, debt-finance has exercised such power over peoples that it has led thinkers as diverse as Hindu theologians and classical economists to link finance to power?

Adopting an avowedly critical perspective, this programme refuses simply to accept current financial law and economics as given. The programme develops an understanding of the conditions in which financial crises develop. It is designed to examine the nature of finance and the power it exercises within society. Focusing on the law, economics and practice of international finance leading up to the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, you will be presented with critical theoretical tools with which to interrogate the role of finance in society, and in particular its effects on value systems. This programme’s critical depth and breadth affords you a unique opportunity to concretise and engage with the questions you have asked about the failures of finance.

To achieve this, you will be given a solid grounding in the legal and economic principles of finance. We examine the practice of finance in today’s financial capitals with their money markets and complicated corporate structures. You will develop practical knowledge and the theoretical tools necessary to critique finance as such: from questioning the concepts of money and value, to the power of finance with respect to time and space, the nexus of finance and consciousness, to the deep relations between finance, consumption, desire and life itself.

The study of finance will be combined with that of international economic institutions, and a range of specialised modules that you can choose based on your individual interests.