Course Syllabus

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Semester & Location:

Summer 2024 - DIS Copenhagen Session 2
Type & Credits:

Core Course - 3 credits
Core Course Study Tours:

Belgrade, Serbia: June 24-28
Major Disciplines:

International Relations, Political Science, Pre-Law, Legal Studies
Faculty Members:

Dorthe Bach Nyemann & Miłosz Jeromin Cordes
Time & Place:

Times vary (see calendar)

Classroom: Fi44-Kosmo 402
Course Description


The course provides students with a general understanding of the international legal regulation of armed conflicts, including humanitarian law, human rights law, and international criminal law. The course aims to enable students to understand the legal challenges of past, current, and future armed conflicts, as well as enable them to critically evaluate concrete cases. Two main case studies provided during the course are the post-conflict (Western) Balkans and Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine & Russia).
The course consists of two modules that complement each other. The first module focuses on the breaches of international humanitarian law and the crimes of genocide taking place in the Balkans during the Yugoslav War in the 1990s. The module illustrates how violations of legal norms create long-lasting consequences for societies. Time does not seem to heal all wounds. On the contrary, how we commemorate historical events can deepen mistrust among citizens across an entire region.
The second module tackles the history of ethnic tensions in Eastern Europe and their contemporary international relations and security dimension. It uses the examples of the Great Famine (Ukrainian: Holodomor) in the Soviet Union and events in the region of Volhynia in today's Ukraine during the Second World War to illustrate the problematic historical roots of Russian-Ukrainian and Polish-Ukrainian relations. It then puts them in the context of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
The course will travel to Belgrade, Serbia, as the city constitutes a prime example of fresh controversies related to armed conflicts and different narratives on the past followed and contested by numerous ethnicities, political groups, and other actors.

Learning Objectives

•    Critically applying the legal definition of genocide to both past and current events.
•    Placing historical events in the current international context and understanding their role in European and global developments.
•    Getting to know the complex history of the former Yugoslavia, as well as of Ukrainian-Polish and Ukrainian-Russian relations.
•    To understand linkages between memory, culture, domestic & international politics, and security.


Faculty
Dorthe Bach Nyemann
Master in Politics and History from the University of Copenhagen 2000. Graduated in courses on International Law a Master of International Security and Law from the University of Southern Denmark in 2015. Worked as a teacher and planner of education at the Danish Army Academy for Junior Officers from 2005 to 2015.
Dorthe currently works at the Royal Danish Defence College (FAK) researching cyber security and hybrid threats. Areas of expertise as a teacher are International Relations, International Law, and the art of writing large assignments. Engaged in international working groups related to the topic of my research. With DIS since 2021.


Miłosz J. Cordes
PhD in Cultural Studies, MA in East-European Cultural Studies and International Relations, BA in History and International Relations. Research Fellow at the Danish Foreign Policy Society (2021-2022), Post-Doctoral Researcher at Lund University (2022-2023). Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellow (2006).
Miłosz spent 10 years in Polish diplomatic service. He was Vice-Consul at Poland's Consulate General in Kaliningrad (2018-2021), Second Secretary at Poland's Permanent Representation to the European Union (2016-2018), Second Secretary and specialist at Poland's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2012-2016). He works as an External Consultant at the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS).
Miłosz's research interests cover identity, politics of memory, nationalism & populism in Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic Sea Region integration, and the West-Russia relations. He has published over 30 articles in international journals and is now working on his book about identity politics in post-Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast.

Main readings for the course 

Christopher Gevers. nd. Beginner's guide to International Criminal Law. https://canvas.disabroad.org/courses/8285/files/1307827?wrap=1

Der Spiegel. 2016. The Yugoslav Wars: Answers to the 10 most important questions. https://www.spiegel.de/international/tomorrow/the-yugoslav-war-questions-and-answers-a-1100795.htmlLinks to an external site.

Ernest A. Zitser. 2019. A White Crow: Raphael Lemkin's Intellectual Interlude at Duke University, 1941-1942, The North Carolina Historical Review. Vol. 96, No. 1 (January): 34-66.

Martin Mennecke. 2008. Genocidal Violence in the Former Yugoslavia, pp. 507-510, 513-517, 529-537. https://canvas.disabroad.org/courses/8285/files/1308147?wrap=1

Marko Milanovic. 2016. Understanding the ICTY’s Impact in the Former Yugoslavia, https://www.ejiltalk.org/understanding-the-ictys-impact-in-the-former-yugoslaviaLinks to an external site.

Nataliia Levchuk, Oleh Wolowyna, Pavlo Shevchuk, Alla Kovbasiuk, Omelian Rudnytskyi. 2015. Demography of a man-made human catastrophe: The case of massive famine in Ukraine 1932–1933.Links to an external site. Canadian Studies in Population 42, no. 1-2: 53–80.

Nyemann, Dorthe Bach (Daft book Chapter) "Kosovo is Serbia": A case study unpacking how Russia advances (shared) Russian and Serbian interests in the Balkans by shaping perceptions on Kosovo" in Russian Warfare and Influence States in the Intersection Between East and West Edited by
Niklas Nilsson and Mikael Weissmann - to be published in summer 2024 Draft book chapter on Kosovo by Dorthe Bach Nyemann.pdfDownload Draft book chapter on Kosovo by Dorthe Bach Nyemann.pdf

Per A. Rudling. 2016. The Cult of Roman Shukhevych in Ukraine: Myth Making with Complications. Fascism: Journal of Comparative Fascist Studies, 5(1), 26-65. https://doi.org/10.1163/22116257-00501003Links to an external site.

USHMM. 2011. What Is Genocide? https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20110210-what-is-genocide.pdfLinks to an external site.

The use of AI writing tools

  • The use of AI in this course is restricted to specific stages such as brainstorming and making research plans or outlines. The primary content of assignments should reflect your knowledge, creativity, and critical thinking. As with all sources of information and ideas, ensure that all AI contributions are correctly cited. The ICRC community provides excellent sources and insights on the most relevant questions on IHL (listed below). These interpretations represent the best and most unbiased knowledge of IHL we have. In most cases using these sources will provide an outstanding quality of answers that you can not expect using AI tools. 

Excellent sources from the ICRC and The Geneva Academy

Field Studies

  • Bastard Cafe (Huset) to play board games that can help us understand how international relations function according to different IR theories and to get to know each other as a group.
  • Go to DIGNITY to talk about the role of the ICTY and the ICJ in the aftermath of the Yugoslav war. We will dive specifically into the crime of genocide in Bosnia and the prosecutions against Serbia and individual Serbs. We are fortunate to have representatives from both the ICTY and the ICJ on the panel.
  • Visit DEO Democracy in Europe to meet Zlatko Jovanovic an expert on political developments in the Balkans. Jovanovic will talk to us about the war in the former Yugoslavia and how it shapes people's lives and perceptions in the Balkans today.

Guest Lecturers

A Crimean Ukrainian scholar who will talk about Russian propaganda narratives related to contemporary Ukraine.

Approach to Teaching

This course will be a combination of lectures and a discussion-based course using case studies as well as group work. The teaching will facilitate a reflective learning process as well as critical and constructive feedback, that aims to sharpen the analytical skills as well as the overall academic methodology of the students. Faculty strive to apply modern didactics and learning methods i.e. flipped classroom philosophy.

Expectations of the Students

Participation

The course consists of lectures and group work by students, guest lectures, a field study, study tours, and manual simulation games. Attendance is mandatory. The readings provide the basis for class work, student presentations, and discussion in each lecture and you may be called upon randomly. All obligatory readings, lectures, guest lectures, field studies, study tours, and manual simulation games are drawn upon for tests and papers. Additional material will be distributed during the course. We expect a high level of student participation throughout the course and study tour.

Grading

During the course, the students must do three assignments that are graded. See the details below.

Assignment

Percent
1,000-word paper on the concept of genocide and the Serbian case

20%

A group presentation of the Kosovo case and perceptions in Serbia, Russia, and the Western states.

20%

Active class participation throughout the course.

20%

Active study tour participation, including group assignments.

20%

A 10-minute video podcast about the relevance of the study tour experiences for sources of controversy in contemporary Poland-Ukraine relations.

20%

 

Academic Regulations 

Please make sure to read the Academic Regulations on the DIS website. There you will find regulations on:

 

Course Summary:

Date Details Due