“Integrating Justice Through Course Design: A Report from Uganda Christian University Faculty of Law” by Brian Dennison

Integrating aspects of justice into curriculum is a welcome and necessary challenge for Christian course designers. This is especially true in the case of legal education in the developing world. The Faculty of Law at Uganda Christian University incorporates Biblical justice principles into its courses in various ways ranging from the practical to the theoretical.

This paper is a survey of the justice education strategies and techniques employed within four course subjects offered to law students at Uganda Christian University: (1) “Introduction to the Bible for Lawyers” introduces the students to God’s heart for justice, presents a wide variety of justice issues from a Biblical context, and begins the justice conversation in the classroom though the use of simple and thought-provoking vignettes; (2) The “Jurisprudence” provides students with wide philosophical perspectives on the nature of justice that are assessed through a Christian lens; (3) “Law and Christian Political Thought in Africa” offers students an opportunity to test and apply theoretical approaches to justice to their present political environment through reading, writing, presenting and class discussion; (4) “Clinical Legal Education” allows students to act on justice principles through community outreach and clinical legal work dedicated to justice-based causes.

Dennison, David, Integrating Justice Through Course Design: A Report from Uganda Christian University Faculty of Law (April 21, 2011). CCCU-IJM Student Learning & Global Justice Conference 2011, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2441866