This LLM course explores international business law and the legal framework that regulates transnational and international business activities, including both commercial and corporate matters. It provides you with in-depth comparative insights into the key areas of law relevant to international business, encompassing dispute resolution mechanisms available to businesses. You gain contextual awareness of the relevant legal rules, policies and jurisdictions their operation in practice and their impact on the efficiency and attractiveness of conducting business in a highly globalised world.

What will you study?

Our International Business Law LLM course will equip you with the knowledge and skills in the combined areas of global business and the law that governs it. The foundational unit on International Trade Law will provide you with a solid foundation in commercial law, with a focus on both interstate trade (in the context of the World Trade Organisation) and trade between businesses, with a specific focus on the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

Furthermore, you will critically assess contemporary legal issues and implications for Intellectual Property Law on an international level as well as its applications involving the protection and commercial exploitation of intellectual property. The unit on International Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility will provide you with a global and comparative overview of the general corporate aspects of international business law, whilst also bringing you up to speed with the contemporary issues of social responsibility, climate change and sustainability.

In addition to examining the substantive laws and rules governing commercial transactions, you will gain a critical understanding of the laws and rules that relate to the different mechanisms for resolving disputes between businesses, including both litigation (explored in the unit International Commercial Litigation) and alternative dispute settlement (which you will study as part of our International Commercial Arbitration unit).

Finally, you will bring this acquired theory and practice together to complete an LLM Dissertation where you will conduct a major research project into a topic of your interest in the field of international business law. Here, you will engage with various sources such as statues, treaties, regulations, policy documents and other academic literature alongside the relevant research methods to help you analyse and critically evaluate your research.

Careers

The course will equip you with the perspective and skills necessary for a wide range of legal careers including within international law firms - many of which have departments specialised in business law - or as in-house counsel within international corporations.

Other potential careers include working as legal advisor to governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as international and intergovernmental organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA) the World Trade Organisation (WTO) the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

The course also provides an excellent pathway for further studies including postgraduate research at MPhil or PhD level.