Hi all,
I have been admitted to both the international human rights LLM in Essex and the Advanced LLM in public international law at Leiden for September 2010. My interest area is human rights. Any thoughts on how to decide?
Thanks!

Essex has the oldest IHRL programme in Europe, and I believe their library is top-notch.

The Advanced program is definitely very new in comparison, seeing as the Dutch didn't start teaching in English until fairly recent. Hence it doesn't benefit from a long string of academic traditions, but its main strengths are it benefits from all the practical resources of international law (as have been stated elsewhere).

If you prefer to completely focus yourself in IHRL, then go to Essex, as the options available in the Leiden Advanced program are completely non-existent, that means, whatever you see in their e-Prospectus is exactly what you will be studying.

I'm going to the Adv. program if that helps, so it all depends on what your priorities are. (I'm not advising you on the basis of rankings)

Thanks very much mikeadyla, I appreciate your thoughts. Yes, unfortunately the human rights offerings at Leiden seem to be quite limited, and you have so little choice as to courses. However, it would be fantastic to study in the Hague. At this point it seems Essex is the better fit for me. Out of curiousity, what made you decide on Leiden?

Hi Christina,

I chose Leiden specifically because I already know working in the Hague is one of the goals I'm moving towards. My subject matter interest is also pretty specific, which I can benefit from constantly visiting the hearings available in the Hague. Public lectures are aplenty in Den Haag, running almost more than twice a week if you're eager, though I must admit that during the 6 months I was there (not studying, I was an intern), I only managed to attend 4 at most.

I'm also the type to be less inclined to worry about how the lecture itself is conducted, and more into independent readings and practical knowledge, which I will most likely get in Leiden, seeing that the lecturers have excellent practical knowledge.

Basically I'm less theoretically oriented (although I'm sure Leiden is excellent academically too, but as you can see I rarely delve into the specifics of exactly what I want to learn) but I'm very happy to throw myself in subjects which I'm not familiar with (I never know when I might find a new subject interest).

Having options can also be a double-edged sword I think, many of my friends I know were initially excited to choose this subject and that subject, but ended up going into class and dropping the subject for a more familiar one because they are worried about their GPAs.

If you choose Leiden, it'll be great to see you there and you should let me know!