Photograph: Osaka, Japan skyline at night.

2020 Course Details and Schedule

Location

The course will be taught at Osaka University, in the Graduate School of Law and Politics and the Faculty of Law, in the Toyonaka Campus.

Course Content

The course will be Comparative Constitutional Law: Rights. It is a seminar that explores how different rights are enshrined, interpreted, and enforced in different constitutional systems. It will be limited to examining a few specific rights, with an emphasis on the systems of the United States, Canada, Japan, and the European Union.

Course Process

The course will be taught over a three-week period, four days a week, for approximately three and a half hours a day in the mornings, leaving time in the afternoons for both exploration and preparation for next day's classes. Fridays will be left free for field trips and class expeditions. Undergraduate and graduate students from Osaka University will also be participating in the classes, providing the opportunity for a true exchange of different views on constitutional law, but they will be assessed separately.

Schedule

In 2020, the course will be conducted from June 8-June 26. Students will be aiming to arrive in Osaka on June 5 or June 6, with classes beginning June 8. A final exam will be conducted on Friday, June 26, with a day off to prepare on June 25. Students can plan to leave any time between June 26-June 30. In 2018, some students went on to travel within Japan, or elsewhere in Asia, before returning to the United States.

Course Assessment

The course is a graded three credit course, which will be assessed based on a final three hour exam.

Toyonaka Campus Map
Map: Toyonaka Campus at Osaka University, Japan.