The Human Rights & Comparative Constitutional Law concentration provides students with a comparative, critical, and robust foundation in both human rights and constitutional law. It offers students a comprehensive understanding of contemporary human rights practices, including uses of constitutional law, in both domestic and international settings.
Each student can design an individual course of study tailored to their academic and professional interests, taking advantage of extensive curricular and clinical offerings and devoted interdisciplinary faculty. Clinics specializing in Capital Punishment, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Immigration, and Transnational Worker Rights give students the opportunity to learn firsthand through cases and projects how to integrate theory, skills, strategy, and law.
This concentration is open to students with a foreign law degree and students with a J.D.
Additionally, students have access to programs and centers at Texas Law. The Law School’s Bernard & Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights & Justice (Rapoport Center). The internationally recognized Rapoport Center serves as a focal point at the University for critical, interdisciplinary analysis and practice of human rights and social justice. The Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights began in 1992 at the University of Texas School of Law and is one of the premier civil liberties and civil rights journals in the country. The Texas International Law Journal is dedicated to providing its readership with cutting edge legal analysis of recent developments in international law.
Internal Scholarships
- Good Neighbor Scholarship (separate application required and March deadline)
- Rapoport Center Human Rights Scholars Program (separate application required and April deadline)
- Application instructions: (1) The applicant’s current standing is other/LL.M. (2) Search the Course Schedule for fall courses the applicant is interested in taking. (3) LL.M. students should list the Law School’s Assistant Dean for Graduate & International Programs as a reference. Email LLM@law.utexas.edu for the Assistant Dean’s contact information. The other two references can be academic or professional references outside Texas Law. (4) Search the Richard and Ginni Mithoff Pro Bono Program, student journals, and student organizations for extracurricular activities the applicant is interested in joining as a Texas Law student.
- Tuition Assistance for Mexican Students (separate application required and April deadline)
Visit Scholarship Opportunities for more information.
General Requirements
- A total of 24 credit hours that must be completed in one academic year (fall and spring terms).
- 12 concentration-specific credit hours (see below).
- Introduction to U.S. Law (This is a requirement for students with a foreign law degree. Students with a background in common law may request a waiver from this requirement.)
- Writing Requirement: A three-credit writing seminar or a two-credit directed research paper (30-40 double-spaced pages).
- Non-U.S. J.D. students planning to take a U.S. state bar exam must also complete certain bar-required courses as part of their LL.M. degree program to be eligible to take the bar examination.
Concentration Requirements
Concentration Requirements:
- 12 credit-hours
- All credits must be completed in Tier #1, International Human Rights Law
- At least 3 credits must be completed in Tier #2, Comparative Constitutional Law.
- The remaining required credits for the concentration may come from any of the courses listed in Tier #2 or Tier #3.
Sample Courses
Tier #1 International Human Rights:
- International Human Rights Law
- Public International Law
Tier #2 Comparative Constitutional Law:
- Seminar: Colloquium on Comparative Constitutional Law & Politics
- Seminar: Explorations in Constitutional Law & Politics Around the Globe
- Const Law II: Constitutional Amendments in the United States and the World
- Directed Research in Comparative Constitutional Law
Tier #3 U.S. Human Rights, U.S. Constitutional Law, Clinics:
Human Rights
- Americans with Disabilities
- Capital Punishment
- Capital Punishment Advanced
- Civil Rights Litigation
- Directed Research Study (arranged on individual basis)
- Domestic Violence and the Law
- Election Law & Policy
- Emerging Issues in Gender Identity, Sexuality, and the Law
- Employment Discrimination Law
- Employment Law
- Equity & Diversity in Higher Education
- Health Law and Policy
- Immigration
- International Human Rights Litigation
- Introduction to Labor Law: The NLRA, Unions & Workers’ Rights
- Nat’l Security Law & Terrorism
- Nat’l Security Law & the Intelligence Community
- Reentry: Criminal Justice
- Seminar: Antidiscrimination Law
- Seminar: Citizenship
- Seminar: Equal Opportunity Law
- Seminar: Equality
- Seminar: Human Rights & Global Inequality: Law, History & Politics
- Seminar: Inequality, Labor, and Human Rights: The Future of Work in the Age of Pandemic
- Seminar: International Human Rights, Anti-Impunity, and Criminal Law
- Seminar: International Humanitarian Law
- Seminar: International Sports & Human Rights
- Seminar: Law of the United States-Mexico Border
- Seminar: Legal/Medical Services for Vulnerable Populations
- Seminar: Reproductive Justice, Criminal Law, and the Carceral State
- Special Education Law
- Directed Research Study (arranged on individual basis)
U.S. Constitutional Law
- Academic Freedom, The First Amendment, and the American University
- Con Law II: Amendments 1 & 2
- Con Law II: Civil Rights
- Con Law II: Constitutional Amendments in and United States and the World
- Con Law II: Constitutional Design
- Con Law II: Constitutional History
- Con Law II: Constitutional Interpretation
- Con Law II: Constitutional Litigation
- Con Law II: Corporations & the Constitution
- Con Law II: Due Process/Equal Protection
- Con Law II: Election Law
- Con Law II: Equality/Liberty
- Con Law II: First Amendment
- Con Law II: Free Speech
- Con Law II: Jurisprudence and Const. Law
- Con Law II: Origins of the Federal Constitution
- Con Law II: Race and the Constitution
- Con Law II: Race/Sex Discrimination
- Con Law II: Reproductive Rights & Justice
- Cutting-Edge Constitutional Litigation – Trial Court to Supreme Court
- Directed Research Study (arranged on individual basis)
- Federal Courts
- Jurisprudence and Constitutional Law
- Race and the Law
- Religious Liberty
- Seminar: Comparative Middle East Law
- Seminar: Homeland Security Law
- Seminar: Supreme Court***
- Seminar: Texas v. United States
- Seminar: The Supreme Court’s Shadow Docket
- Seminar: Law & Religion in the Modern Middle East
- State Constitutional Law
- Supreme Court
- Supreme Court Practice: 20th Anniversary of the Texas Solicitor General’s Office
- Terror/Consent: Constitutional/International Law
- Youth Justice & the Policy Development Process
Clinics
- Capital Punishment Clinic
- Civil Rights Clinic
- Disability Rights Clinic
- Human Rights Clinic
- Immigration Clinic
- Law and Religion Clinic
- Transnational Worker Rights Clinic
Note: The sample courses listed above are sample course offerings only and are not necessarily offered every term. Past, current, and future courses can be accessed on the Law School’s Course Schedule. Clinics are competitive and require an application.