Opportunities in International Law: interview with Katherine Reece-Thomas – Amisha Jain

City interviews Katherine Reece-Thomas on the launch of her new Public International Law LLM, ahead of the ‘Opportunities in International Law’ event.

Author Amisha

What did you do before joining City University?

A Canadian, I studied law at Oxford and did my LLM in Public International Law (“PIL”) at Cambridge University. I taught PIL at Cambridge for many years while I qualified as a solicitor and then an attorney in New York. Having practiced a bit of Public International Law, it has always been an in interest to me to see how it works on the ground, so to speak, how it affects individual lives through the court systems of individual countries. But I also publish research in company law, in particular shareholders’ agreements.

Why introduce the new LLM?

CLS run a very successful LLM in International Commercial Law but we haven’t done any of the public international for some time. International Law is of great interest to students at the moment and to the world as a whole, of course. There are too many tragedies in the world to let it out of the public eye for long. In addition CLS has recruited a number of academics who specialise in PIL and who are passionate about sharing their knowledge and appreciation for this important subject.

What can students expect to gain from the new LLM? Why study at City?

The LLM is modelled on the existing International Commercial Law LLM. In that sense, students have to take 4 modules over a year, 2 in the first term, 2 in the second term and write a dissertation. They can specialise in particular branches of Public International Law, such as Human Rights, Minority Rights, The Law of State Responsibility, Dispute Settlement or International Criminal Law, but they obviously don’t have to.

There is a stable of modules on offer, a bit of a pick and mix. The thing about City is that we will teach all the modules in house as we are not relying on any visiting professors. Our team are dedicated Public International lawyers who are very keen to teach in the areas they research and publish in. We will be giving it a very much hands on approach from the point of view of admin staff and personal tutoring.