Hi Everyone!
Today I wanted to highlight one of my favorite classes at
the center I’m taking this semester—Professor Mushkat’s International Dispute
Resolution course. MAIS students at the Hopkins Nanjing Center are required to
take at least one class in every concentration. While I’m not concentrating in International Law at
the HNC, but I took this course to fulfill this requirement. On top of that, the course sounded really
interesting to me as it touches on legal aspects and mechanisms vital to
international relations and negotiations.
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First and foremost, I will say I have the utmost respect for
Professor Mushkat. I say this because I am definitely challenged in her class
even though it is in my native language. However, Professor Mushkat
makes the class accessible for non-law concentration students and non-native
English language students. She provides useful readings, which she supplements
with her succinct in-class lectures.
Don’t expect to be sitting through lectures the entire class
though because she will test your knowledge and ask for your opinion on dispute
resolution methods. This will require you to understand context and meanings of
legal ‘jargon’.
My favorite part of the class though are the simulation
modules you begin halfway through the semester. The first module our class
tackled was the Mekong River Dispute. Everyone in the class was assigned positions
in a conference dealing with resolving dam building disputes along the Mekong River.
I was the ASEAN 2016 Chair represented by Laos. Ultimately, we came to a
successful resolution but only after some elbow jabbing.
This week we are going to tackle the dispute between Georgia
and Russia where we will evaluate the effectiveness of filing a case with the
International Court of Justice. Lots of reading to do!
Written by Chelsea Toczauer, MAIS Student