Two new courses to be added to the options for undergraduate students
From October 2025 two new courses will be added to the options list for undergraduate law students. Law and Technology, convened by Professor Justine Pila builds on the undergraduate Law, Regulation and Technology Jurisprudence mini-option, which was offered in 2024-25 to two streams of 60 students. Also added to the list will be Introduction to Asian Comparative Laws, convened by Professor Ngoc Son Bui. As part of the BA Jurisprudence (and Law with Law Studies in Europe) students currently select two optional subjects to study alongside the seven core courses.
These two new exciting topics expand the list of optional subjects available and we hope they will prove to be popular with our students. Both of these options will also open to both Diploma in Legal Studies and MJur students in 2025-26.
The aim of the Law and Technology option is to examine a selection of contemporary issues at the law and technology interface, focusing on the nature of the issues and the law’s construction of and response to them, and on the relationship between law and technology more generally. The readings are chosen with a view to situating contemporary legal developments concerning digital and bio technologies in their wider legal, theoretical and policy context, and to equipping students with a range of perspectives from which to critique them. After taking the option, students should be able to critically unpack and assess contemporary debates concerning law and technology, and contribute to conversations around a diverse range of issues of relevance, including the role of law in supporting technological advance and access to its benefits, resolving tensions between individual and public interests, identifying and addressing new types of harm, reconciling the needs of sovereign and global communities, accommodating changing conceptions of health, identity, and family, and managing radical uncertainty.
Asian Comparative Laws is a part of comparative law and is built on new developments of comparative law in the twenty-first century. Asia is a significant region of the world with 51 jurisdictions and 60% of global population. The rise of Asia, particularly major world powers, such as China and India, has generated great demands for understanding of laws in the region. It is also important to study the laws of Asia where legal experiences are rich, law reforms and legal developments are dynamic. This option subject introduces students to major features of seven common themes of comparative law in Asia, including religious law, colonial law, authoritarian law, legal diffusion, law and development, regional law, and international law. This subject illustrates the themes by experience in four jurisdictions, namely: China, Japan, India, and Singapore.
The addition of these two new option subjects brings the total number offered to twenty-six, although some subjects may not run in any given year. Find the full list of compulsory courses and options on the Undergraduate Options page.