Subject or Skill? Teaching (and Learning) International Law as an International Relations Scholar

How should international law (IL) be taught in international relations (IR) graduate programs? Substantively, IL and IR overlap on many topics that IR graduate students are often interested in studying. However, time constraints mean that an IR student may be lucky to have a single semester-long course dedicated to IL. Given this tension between substantive interest and limited time, how should IL be taught in IR graduate programs? In contrast to traditional approaches that focus on the substantive areas of international law and its role as a variable in global politics, this chapter argues for a skills-based approach focused on the skills needed to interpret IL and engage with how IL is used and understood by practitioners. This approach may, in turn, allow IR scholars to engage more deeply with IL in their research, better equip scholars for long-term study, and allow for greater interdisciplinary engagement between the fields of law and IR.