Monday, August 4, 2025 at 9:00 AM EDT - Sunday, September 14, 2025 at 5:00 PM EDT
War, Peace, and Law: August 4 - September 14, 2025
Each week includes multimedia content—readings, videos, case studies, and podcasts—alongside discussion prompts and an optional assignment to deepen learning. You can complete the course at your own pace.
Plus, optional 1-hour Zoom calls offer real-time opportunities for connection, reflection, and support:
Call #1 – Introductions & Intentions: Thursday, August 14, 2025 – 11:00 AM Eastern (US/Canada)
Call #2 – Mid-Course Reflections: Thursday, August 28, 2025 – 11:00 AM Eastern (US/Canada)
Call #3 – Where Do We Go From Here?: Thursday, September 11, 2025 – 11:00 AM Eastern (US/Canada)
War and peace are not only political struggles—they are legal constructs that shape global power, foreign and domestic policy, and everyday life. War is prohibited under international law, and numerous constitutions, treaties, and legal systems restrict, renounce, or seek to prevent it. Yet exceptions persist, enforcement is selective, and legal norms are routinely ignored, undermined, or exploited. The result is a world where war is illegal on paper but legitimized and normalized in practice.
This six-week online course explores how legal systems enable, constrain, and challenge war. Through case studies, legal texts, historical examples, and participatory discussions, you will examine how law has been used to justify war and violence, hold perpetrators accountable, and envision alternatives. Each module focuses on a distinct theme—whether conceptual, legal, political, or practical—and invites critical reflection on how legal norms are created, enforced, resisted, and reimagined.
Philosopher Immanuel Kant argued that peace must be grounded in law. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us that unjust laws must be opposed. From the Kellogg-Briand Pact to the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and dozens of peace-oriented constitutions, legal frameworks exist to prevent war and promote justice—but they are often undermined, sidelined, or selectively applied.
Yet law is not fixed. Around the world, people continue to use it—as a tool of resistance, a path to reform, and a foundation for peace. There are many ways to move the world beyond war—and law is one of them.
Whether you see law as a barrier, a battleground, or a bridge to transformation, this course offers a clear and critical introduction to the legal dimensions of war and peace—and how they might be changed to help end war for good.
To register ($25 - $50 for low income. $100 regular price) War, Peace, and Law: An Online Course - World BEYOND War