Aims

In this seminar students undertake an in-depth study of some aspects of law whose basic principles have been taught in previous years,. Each year, the theme of the seminar varies but is sufficiently broad to allow the selection of some fifteen subjects closely related by a common set of problems.

Main themes

The seminar has two objectives. Firstly, during the year, students have to make an oral presentation of the results of their research on the assigned subject and, secondly, they must produce a written submission in which they set out and critically analyse the subject matter, integrating the discussions and debates which will have followed their own oral presentation and those of the other participants in the seminar. The first presentations only take place during the second six-month period. However, in the first half of the year, each student begins research on his or her subject. Participants have to make regular reports on their research, with appraisals of progress and summaries of the difficulties encountered. To ensure coordination of the various written submissions this will be a team effort. During the first six months, sessions are also held to examine a specific document on a subject closely related to the theme of the seminar. The expert speaker invited may be from within or outside the Faculty. The seminar ends with an evaluation of each student. This evaluation depends on work carried out during the year, the effectiveness of contributions to the various written papers and debates; the quality of the oral presentation and, of course, the quality of the final paper submitted.

Content and teaching methods

Topic: Equality between women and men, developments and recent applications.

In 2004-2005, for students in the second year of the law degree, the seminar on social law is dedicated to equality between women and men. There have recently been some interesting developments of the principle of equality between women and men, in particular under the influence of European Law (in fact, this principle is a source of much litigation before the Court of Justice of the European Union). These developments concern:
- the extension of its applications to matters on the borders between social law and other disciplines (for example access to goods and services);
- the extension of the concept of equality, through, for example, an " integrated gender approach" or "gender mainstreaming", and the development of measures from equal educational opportunity to equal participation of men and women at all levels of society, etc.
- the development of procedural law by means of an institute for equality between women and men to act in legal proceedings (implementation of the EU Directive 2002/73/EU).

Various topics are proposed to the students during the first session. Over the two years, five interactive sessions allow students to meet distinguished speakers in the field of equality.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

As the Faculty organises about fifteen seminars, with limited access to each one, the seminar tutors suggest three themes in the academic year preceding the seminar. The wording of the topics is communicated as soon as possible to second-year degree students. This makes it possible to satisfy demand for the most popular themes.

Other credits in programs