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Schedule of Classes
Course Descriptions
Faculty Information
Course Materials and Library Facilities 

 

COURSES FOR SUMMER 2010
 

In addition to staple courses examining the laws of the European Union and those that regulate international trade, new courses are developed each year especially for the Summer Law Program in Poland. The law school’s goal is to offer students unique courses covering comparative aspects of substantive areas of law which are rarely available in the United States and that are of fundamental importance to students of countries in transition, like Poland. 


CCourses in previous years have focused on international aspects of tax and economic regulation, human rights, arbitration, constitutional law and legal ethics and the legal profession. In summer 2010, the program will offer courses on comparative contract, international business transactions, as well as international securities regulation.


All classes in the Summer Law Program will be conducted in English.  American students must enroll for at least five, and no more than seven, semester hours of credit. Methods of evaluation of students’ performance may vary; most of the courses have written exams, though some courses may offer take-home exams or written papers. 

Schedule of Classes (tentative) 

June 14 - July 24
 
Course Title Credits Dates Time Instructor
Law of the European Union 3 June 14-July 24 9:30-11:00 a.m. Ludwikowski
Comparative & International Trade 3 June 14-July 24 11:15-12:45 p.m. Chorosnicki/    Ludwikowski

Introduction to the American Legal System (Polish and European students ONLY)

 2 June 14-July 2 1:45-3:45 p.m. Krasnicka
International Securities Regulation 2 June 14-July 2 4-6  p.m.

Lipton
International Business Transactions 2 July 6-July 24 1:45-3:45 p.m. Baginska

Comparative Contract Law

 2 July 6-July 24 4-6 p.m.

Wagner

 
 
Six-week courses 

(3 credit hours) 

Three-week courses 
(2 credit hours)

     

 

Course Descriptions

 

Comparative and International Trade (3 credit hours) 
Americans: Only the first 20 are guaranteed registration in this course. 
This course concentrates on the public regulation of international trade and policy of the world’s major trading partners. It examines problems of import and export controls, response to unfair practices in international trade, dumping and subsidies, antidumping and countervailing duties, as well as international monetary policy and international investment. Students are introduced to the basic regulatory scheme of the WTO/GATT System, to the policies of Free Trade Areas and Customs Unions and to trade with the European Union and with non-market economies. The emphasis is on U.S. regulation of international trade, the distribution of national powers to deal with transnational problems, presidential powers to regulate international economic affairs, escape clauses and safeguards under GATT and U.S. law and retaliation against unfair trade practices. The course grade is based on a final written examination. 

Comparative Contract Law (2 credit hours)

This course in comparative contract law introduces the student to basic issues in the law of contract concerning formation, breach and remedies for breach.  It explores the scope and justification of the enforcement of contractual obligation within the legal systems it examines, delineating the relative priority assigned to the enforcement of contract and other competing values.  It investigates modes of lawmaking and adjudication in the area of contract law characteristic of code and common law systems.  In pursuing these questions, the course undertakes a systematic review of relevant German, Polish, and American law. The course grade is based on a written final examination.

This course concentrates on private business transactions that cross national boundaries. It is designed to provide students with the tools they need to understand the various legal doctrines applicable to international commercial contracts. After an examination of some basic international and comparative law principles, the course focuses primarily on international sales of goods, distributor/agency agreements and international payments and security. In addition, it will examine relevant issues of private international law and the resolution of international disputes. This is an exam course.

 

This course focuses on the international securities market and how it interacts with the American securities regulatory system.  An initial background will be developed outlining the purpose and operation of a securities market, the nature of participants in a securities market, the operational definition of securities, the basic regulatory system for the issuance and secondary trading of securities, and the registration and regulations of securities industry personnel.  The course explains how the American regulation system is imposed upon foreign issuers seeking to raise capital in American Markets.   It also explores the regulation of foreign securities industry personal who sell securities to American investors.  Finally, the course examines how foreign issuers can find exemptions from American regulations while still accessing the American securities markets.   If time permits, the course will also explore alternatives to the present duplicative regulatory system. 

Introduction to the American Legal System (2 semester hours)

This course is offered to Polish and European students only.

Principal themes include differences in the models of legal education and the legal profession in the United States and Poland. This course introduces students to the concept of precedent and to the role courts play in the lawmaking process in common law countries, and presents the structure of the American court system and focuses on the process of judicial review. The course analyzes the basic principles of the American judicial process, the role of the jury in both criminal and civil proceedings and the differences between adversary and inquisitorial processes. Finally, the course provides an overview of the electoral system in the United States and of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.  The course grade is based primarily on a final written examination.


Law of the European Union (3 credit hours)   
Americans: Only the first 20 are guaranteed registration in this course. 
This course provides an overview of the political and legal framework of the European Union institutions, trade relations and legal and business implications of the European process of integration. The course focuses on the creation of the European Union, the structures and processes for the development of the Union’s law, constitutional issues, the role of the European Court of Justice, East-West trade and U.S. trade within the European Union. Students may have the option of taking a written examination or giving a class presentation and writing a paper. 

 

PROFESSOR EWA BAGINSKA holds a postdoctoral degree in law and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and International Commercial Law of the Faculty of Law and Administration at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland. She teaches Contracts, Torts, Consumer and Competition Law, and Introduction to American Private Law. In 1998-1999, Professor Baginska was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law, and in 2000-2001, she was granted a NATO Postdoctoral Science Fellowship also at CUA Law. She is a fellow of the European Tort and Insurance Center in Vienna, Austria. Professor Baginska has published over 40 articles, reports and book chapters in the area of civil law and comparative law. Professor Baginska has authored two books: Products Liability in U.S. Law (2000) and Tort liability of public authorities (2006).

Professor Michal ChorosnicKI is a professor at the Jagiellonian University Law School. Professor dr. hab. Chorosnicki has served as the Polish Administrator of the Summer Law Program in Cracow since the program’s inception in 1992. He is a specialist in international relations who has significant experience in the American legal process. Dr. Chorosnicki is a former visiting professor at Yale University, Southern Connecticut State University and at the Columbus School of Law (1995 and 1999). He participated in the Advanced Study Program at the Royal Institute of Foreign Affairs in London, at the American Studies Program in Salzburg, Austria, as a scholar at Kiev University in the Ukraine and was an international visitor in the USIA program. His latest book is entitled NAFTA: The Decade of Change.

PROFESSOR IZABELLA KRASNICKA holds a doctoral degree in law and is an Associate Professor in the Department of Public International Law of the Faculty of Law and at the University in Bialystok, Poland. She teaches Public International Law, Law of the European Union and Introduction to American Legal System. In 1999, Professor Krasnicka was a Boeing Scholar at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and, in 2005, she was granted a Kosciuszko Foundation Research Grant also at CUA Law. She is a member of the Legal Clinics Foundation's Board and Coordinator of the European Union exchange programs.


PROFESSOR DAVID LIPTON will be joining the International Business and Trade Summer Law Program for his seventh time this summer, but he has taught in various other programs and at other universities in Poland for a total of seventeen times.  He is a professor of law at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law and Director of the Securities Law Program.   Prior to joining the faculty at CUA, he taught at Case Western Reserve Law School.  He also held a visiting position with the Securities and Exchange Commission and practiced corporate and securities law with the New York City firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.  Professor Lipton has served as a member and chair of FINRA's National Arbitritration Committee, as a member of and chair and vice-chair of the steering committee of the D.C. Bar’s Section on Corporations, Finance, and Securities, as a member of FINRA's National Adjudicatory Council and the Market Regulation Committee.  He currently is a director of the Municipal Securities Regulation Board. He is the author of numerous books and articles on securities and corporations, including Broker-Dealer Regulation (West Law, revised biannually) and A Student’s Guide to Accounting for Lawyers (3rd ed. 1998). Professor Lipton has also lectured at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Economic Academy of Cracow, theUniversity of Torun, Bialystok University, the University of Bratslow, The Beijing College of Judges and Bologna University. He is a frequent speaker at conferences and training sessions held by FINRA, the North American Securities Administrators Association, and the American Bar Association.  He received a B.A. from Cornell University, a M.A. from Columbia University, and a J.D. from the University of Michigan. 

 PROFESSOR RETT LUDWIKOWSKI  is the founding director of the Summer Law Program in Cracow, created in 1992. Professor Ludwikowski holds doctorate degrees in law and legal and political theory. Until 1982 he taught law and politics and held the chair of Modern Legal and Political Movements and Ideas and was the chairman of the Division of Law and Business at the Jagiellonian University in Cracow, Poland.  After coming to the United States in 1982, Dr. Ludwikowski continued his research work, while holding several visiting scholar and visiting fellow positions, including the USICA Program, U.S. State Department (1981), The Heritage Foundation (1981), Elizabethtown College, PA (1982-1983), and the Hoover Institute, Stanford University (1983). He was also a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship (1997) and the residential Fellowship of Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, Germany (1989). He came to the Catholic University of America in 1984 and has been a professor of law at the Columbus School of Law since 1985. Dr. Ludwikowski has served as the director of the Comparative and International Law Institute since the institute's inception in 1985.  From 2001 to 2003, he was the managing editor of Comparative Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, a multi-volume publication of Oceana Publications, Inc.

Professor Ludwikowski has authored 20 books, including his most recently published books, International Trade. Warsaw: C.H. Beck, 2006 and Mafia --Part II,  Warsaw, KUBA, 2006.

Professor William Wagner joined the faculty at the Columbus School of Law in 1984, and has taught constitutional law, jurisprudence, contracts, agency and partnership, law and literature, and law and religion. He is currently the director of the university's Center for Law, Philosophy and Culture and has organized conferences on "Death and Dying and Burial: Approaches in Religious Law and Pratice," "Jubilee Year Reflections on Catholic Social Thought: Anticipating the Kingdom," and "A Comparative Law Colloquium: The Value of Free Speech and Its Reasoned Limits in the Constitutional Systems of the United States of America and the Federal Republic of Germany." In 1995 Professor Wagner received a Fulbright Grant as a visiting research scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany.

Prof. Wagner received a bachelor's degree in 1975 from the University of California at Los Angeles, his J.D. from Yale University in 1978, and a master's degree in 1983 from The Catholic University of America. He also earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in 2002.

Course Materials and Library Facilities

All necessary course materials are in English and will be obtained or prepared by the Columbus School of Law and made available at cost to participating American and Canadian students upon arrival in Cracow. Polish students will have access to all texts and materials used in the program. Students will also have access to the outstanding resources of the Jagiellonian University library as well as to the specialized collection of the library of the Faculty of Law. Approximately 20 percent of the Jagiellonian’s collection of 2.8 million books and periodicals are in English. The library is open during weekday hours and a limited collection of materials suggested by the faculty will be held on reserve at a place convenient to all students.

There is limited weekday access to computer facilities, however students may bring properly insured laptop computers for personal word processing needs. Although e-mail access will be provided at Jagiellonian University, many students have found it most convenient to send and receive e-mail from one of the many Internet cafes that are open in Cracow. Memberships at these Internet cafes are inexpensive and hours of operation are significantly longer than the university’s hours. 

 

Nicholas Ghazal • Krakow  • Summer 2008

"The Summer Law Program was a great chance for me to improve my law knowledge and to make progress in English."