Spring 2027

Principles of International Law

Survey of international law focusing on states, organizations, and EU actors; provides tools to understand how international law works.

offering recorded3–4 credits
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 Genevieve Bates3.9/5

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Andrew McWard

Andrew McWard's course relied on three papers and two exams, with participation credit in simulation and discussion sections; readings were sometimes tough but supplemental to the lectures.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Explain why international law exists.

  • Provide a clear explanation of the different sources of international law, the various means of resolving international legal disputes, and how US courts approach questions of international law.

  • Explain why different types of international problems are best addressed by different types of legal structures, and how this accounts for variation in the shape of international law across issue areas.

  • Demonstrate comfort engaging with a variety of different primary sources (e.g. judicial cases, treaties).

  • Demonstrate the ability to identify the key facts in a given fact pattern, identify relevant provisions of international law, and apply these legal principles to these facts to build a legal argument.

  • Make an argument about whether international law is successful at achieving its goals.

  • Assess the state of a body of scholarly literature related to course themes, identify gaps in that literature, and formulate an original research question in the context of those gaps.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
POLISCI 356

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027
Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 5.00/5 from 4 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.62 GPA, 84.4% A/AB (n=96 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.71 GPA, 84.8% A/AB (n=99 letter grades).

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

ANDREW MCWARD is recorded teaching in Fall 2021, Fall 2022, Spring 2023. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

GENEVIEVE BATES is recorded teaching in Spring 2025, Fall 2025. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist
LEC 001Classroom Instruction0 / 1020
DIS 302Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 303Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 304Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 305Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 306Classroom Instruction0 / 170
DIS 307Classroom Instruction0 / 170

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections. Enrollment reflects scan time.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Andrew McWard

One past student of Andrew McWard found lectures easy to pay attention to; another called the class highly informative but dense.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.66 GPA, 88.6% A/AB (n=35 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.62 GPA, 84.4% A/AB (n=96 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.71 GPA, 84.8% A/AB (n=99 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Andrew McWard

Andrew McWard's course relied on three papers and two exams, with participation credit in simulation and discussion sections; readings were sometimes tough but supplemental to the lectures.

Past student reviews · Andrew McWard

One reviewer noted grading turnarounds were long and not Andrew's fault.

Topics

  • Interactions among states, IGOs, NGOs, and other international actors
  • Structural and substantive issues in international law
  • Role of international organizations in the legal system
  • European Union as an international actor
  • Sources of law, dispute resolution, and US court approaches

Skills

  • Basic tools for understanding how international law works
  • Explain sources of international law, dispute resolution, and US court approaches
  • Engage with primary sources such as judicial cases and treaties
  • Apply legal principles to facts to build legal arguments
  • Assess scholarly literature and formulate original research questions

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

Download part 1
Selected offering source records
POLISCI 356 · Spring 2027

Principles of International Law

Recorded 2026-10-14
Raw records 
[
  {
    "run_id": "20261014T203208-0851c9a1",
    "semester": "1274",
    "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00",
    "offering_id": "1274:778:015894",
    "course_id": "POLISCI 356",
    "course_uid": "course_9e0b468a553d5c1f2d84a782",
    "term_id": "1274",
    "source_course_id": "015894",
    "source_subject_id": "778",
    "title": "Principles of International Law",
    "credits_min": 3,
    "credits_max": 4,
    "typically_offered": "Occasionally"
  }
]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
Download part 1
Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

Download part 1
Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "98f63112879cbffd4fd43e2d916712bcdec217d6029325beb095fce29191af92",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}