A basic knowledge of the Fundamental Rights and Legal Theory.

The aim of the course is to analyze the Global Governance from a conceptual, political, and historical point of view. The course will consider a diversified literature to provide students with a wide range of perspectives.  

By the end of the course the student should be able to: 

• Learn what ‘global governance’ means, and how it tackles global challenges and pursues a global agenda;
• Discover the key actors engaged in global governance, including formal and informal intergovernmental international organizations, regional organizations, businesses, citizens and multistakeholder initiatives;
• Become acquainted with various tools and approaches of global governance, including hard and soft law, regulatory standards, and voluntary commitments;
• Understand how global governance is evolving as international organizations face new challenges;
• Engage in constructive discussion about contemporary and historical issues in global governance;
• Use linguistic tools suitable for political, institutional, legal and cultural concepts. 
• Have acquired the ability to analyze and reflect on the relationships between institutions and society. 

Global Governance is a very salient issue on the international agenda. The course will be focused on conceptual and historical issues. Who runs the world? How do international institutions and other actors contribute to the provision of governance? What are the historical events that have led us to the current world government? Why did Global Governance emerge? Whither Global Governance?

The lessons will dive deeper into a key actor of global governance: international organizations. The course will turn also to the role that regional organizations, such as the European Union, play in global governance. In the last part we will look at how global governance works in action. To do so, we will zoom in on issue areas (e.g. sustainable trade, security, human rights, and health etc.). 

Course outline:

Module 1: Introduction. The Challenges of the 21st Century and three cornerstones of Global Studies (Globalization, Global Governance and Global Law). 

Module 2: The historical idea of Global Government. 

Module 3: Emergence and evolution of International Organizations, Regulatory Standards.

Module 4: Regional organizations and the history of European Union Integration. 

Module 5: Re-thinking Democracy and Rule of Law from the past to the present.

Exam texts:

• (A) B. Reinalda, Routledge history of international organizations: from 1815 to the present day, London-New York, Routledge, 2009, ISBN 9780415850445, Part VI, Part VIII, Part XVI.
• (A)T. G. Weiss, Global Governance: Why? What? Whither?, Cambridge: Polity, 2015 ISBN: 9780745660462.
• (C) S. Cassese, The Global polity. Global dimensions of democracy and rule of law, Sevilla: Global Law Press-Editorial Derecho Global 2012, ISBN 9788493634964  https://www.globallawpress.org/extras/archivos/2023/02-TheGlobalPolity.pdf

The teaching is conducted entirely in English.

• The course will combine lectures with seminar activities.Students are supported to participate actively with readings, comments, discussions. 

  During the frontal lessons, the instructor will introduce tools for understanding and evaluating global governance using of slides and other interactive methods (e.g. video, trends, and graphs). 

  Seminars include in-class graded presentations and discussions of assigned readings. Each student is required to analyse the assigned topic using the interpretive keys provided in class. Specifically, students are required to prepare an oral presentation and write a paper of approximately 5 pages. The oral presentation and paper are an integral part of the course and may be worth up to 10% of your final grade.

  
  

  
  

• Students will take a final written exam in 50 minutes (n. 10 multiple choice and n. 2 short open questions).

  The criteria used for evaluation are:

  - Knowledge and understanding of the exam materials (60%).

  - Autonomy of judgement and critical thinking (20%).

  - Propriety of language and clarity of exposition (20%).

English