The School of Law is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Aarhus University offers a number of lectures presenting legal research that are specially tailored for high school students

 These lectures deal with topics that can easily be linked to the core subjects of high school teaching. They can either be included as part of a wider project or as stand-alone arrangements. All lectures will end with an invitation to discuss the topic covered and/or the possibility of putting questions to the lecturer.

 The lecturers currently fall within the following four topics:

• Freedom of expression
• Human rights
• Law and young people
• Criminal law and criminology
  
  See also other research at the School of Law

Lectures can be arranged throughout the year, but it cannot be guaranteed that all requests can be met. Lectures are arranged partly on the basis of the first-come-first-served principle and partly on the number of classes participating in the arrangement at the high school in question. The School of Law itself allocates the lectures under the individual topics between the qualified lecturers.

To arrange a lecture and for further information, contact:

Kasper Steensgaard (ks@jura.au.dk). When making a request, please state:

1)      proposed dates

2)      the priority of the chosen topics

3)      an estimate of the number of participants

4)      the high school’s EAN number.

The price per lecture is DKK 1,000. This price covers both transport costs and the lecturer’s fee.

Freedom of expression

What is one allowed to say, think, draw, photograph?

What information may one disclose?

Why/why not?

Freedom of expression is legally regulated in international human rights conventions, in the Danish Constitution, in the criminal code, and judgments and decisions of the Danish courts have concerned freedom of expression, the European Court of Human Rights, and the Danish Press Council.

The lecture will give information about the most important aspects of freedom of expression and will link these to actual cases. The starting point will be that freedom of expression is a social good, but that restrictions on it are necessary, for example in the case of restrictions on the disclosure of personal data, prohibitions on child pornography etc. The lecture will show how (or whether) the balance has been struck in Danish law, by looking at the question of expressions of racial discrimination and blasphemy. The differences of differing cultural approaches will be touched on, especially the differences between the American, European and Danish traditions.

The particular focus and perspective of the lecture can be agreed.

Available lecturer

Sten Schaumburg-Müller is Professor in the School of Law at Aarhus University, educated in law and in philosophy. He has lectured and taught on freedom of expression and press freedom to law students, journalism students, Chinese lawyers, TV2, foreign NGOs and Danish organisations. He has written a book on media law as well as articles on the topic, including on social clients in the media and the media and essential privacy.

Human rights

Are there such things as human rights? What do they consist of? Where do they come from? Are they universal? Are there also human rights in, for example, China and the Arabian countries? Are human rights a threat to democracy?

Are there differences between national and international human rights? Should multinational companies like Shell and Novo Nordisk also comply with human rights doctrines, or do they only apply to states?

Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 there has been a massive development in the international regulation of human rights. There are now three human rights courts, in addition to the International Criminal Court. The European Court of Human Rights alone has handed down well over 10,000 decisions.

The starting point for the lecture will be the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it will look in more detail at what human rights consist of. The background to the international regulation will be dealt with and the developments since 1948 will be examined. The tensions between human rights and national sovereignty will be considered, and this connection the Danish tradition will be included. Different perspectives on human rights will be looked at.

The particular focus and perspective of the lecture can be agreed

Available lecturer

Sten Schaumburg-Müller is Professor in the School of Law at Aarhus University, educated in law and in philosophy. He has lectured and taught on human rights to Det Lærde Selskab, to parishioners in Viby, to judges of local courts in Zambia, foreign NGOs, to people preparing to abroad for IHB (the Danish international emergency aid organisation) and MS ActionAid Denmark, as well as law students and journalism students. He is a member of the Committee of the Danish Institute for Human Rights and has written a number of articles, including on a legal perspective on prejudices about human rights, on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and

‘The Uneasy Balance Between Individual Rights and the Necessity of Communities’ and ‘Human Rights on Swampy Ground - Rejecting a Rational Basis as Well as the Sufficiency of Positive Law’.

Law and young people

The law is relevant to all of us in our everyday lives. But in our industrialised and globalised world it has taken on a special significance for young people, both before and after their eighteenth birthdays. Even while living in their parental homes they will be making transactions on the internet or entering into employment contracts. What are their rights and duties – what if goods bought on the internet do not arrive? What are your rights when your IPod breaks down? Do you have an unconditional right to exchange goods or to return them? Does it make a difference if the transaction is made in a shop or over the internet? Can under age be bound, for example, by a telephone contract? Use of the internet to download music can also lead to legal problems – even criminal offences. How can one avoid committing a crime in this context?

When a young person moves away from home there will usually be new problems: tenancy agreements, taking loans etc. A topical problem concerns the rules on SMS loans. Or more down to earth – do you have a right to a glass of water in a café? Living together with others can also raise questions. What are one’s obligations, and what are myths and what does the law say? And what obligations does a young man if he goes into town one evening, forgets to use a condom, and makes a young woman pregnant?

These are examples of some of the problems that young people can meet in their everyday lives. The lecture will expose some of the myths that have grown up, and there will be an opportunity to answer specific questions.

Available lecturers

Birgit Liin, Senior Lecturer, Ph.D, Cand.jur

Lars Henrik Gam Madsen, Senior Lecturer, Cand.jur

Anne-Dorte Bruun Nielsen, Senior Lecturer, Cand.jur

Claus Rohde, Senior Lecturer, Cand.jur

Kasper Steensgaard, Ph.D fellow, Cand.jur

Criminal law and criminology

What should one be punished for, who can be punished, and how should they be punished?

These questions are always good material in the newspapers. But they are also central to the justice system, which is a major concern of lawyers.

Punishment is one of the state’s most serious steps taken in relation to its citizens. It is an important reason why it must be stated in the law in precise terms what one can be punished for, so that all have the possibility of avoiding committing punishable acts. It is also important that people who, because of their young age or mental capacity, are not able to understand the seriousness of their acts should not be punished but should perhaps, be helped. Finally, there must be limits to punishment, so that the institutions of the state cannot be accused of being subject to other than legal considerations.

However, it is important to understand that all the rules and all the practices have been create by people and can be changed by people. How is it decided that throwing a bucket of water at somebody can be punished as a violent act? How is that a 14 year old can be punished with imprisonment, but must be 18 years old before they can vote, marry or give up membership of the state church? Why are there more unemployed people than company directors in prison? How much criminality is there if fact? What happens in a prison? How can one be punished without going to prison? And can’t the culprit and their victim sort it out between them?

These and many other questions fall within the scope of criminology – which is the study of the causes, effects and distribution of criminality.

It is not possible to answer all these questions in the course of a couple of hours, but it is possible to get a taste of some of the topics and maybe be a bit wiser about some of the topics on which everyone has an opinion. One may even find out that the less one knows, the easier it is to have an opinion!

Available lecturer

Anette Storgaard, Senior lecturer, Lic.jur, who teaches Criminal law and Criminology at Aarhus University and researches in particular into punishment and alternative forms of punishment.

In addition to the six topics referred to the School of Law is engaged in research in a large number of other areas. It is possible to contact individual researchers to find out about the possibility of arranging for a lecture on a specific topic. An overview of the research undertaken at the School of Law can be found in the School’s website under the heading of ‘Research’.