Professor Johns seems so approachable and makes the subject matter seem so straightforward and easy in class, but she (or her TA, I'm not sure) is a ruthless grader. For a class where there is not always a clear right or wrong answer, it was surprising that even after filling up the entire page for short answers that it would be given 0/10 points. The weekly quizzes on the case studies are easy points, and that might depend on which TA you get. The exams are curved tremendously though. The final exam was quickly turned into a take-home assignment consisting of 4 short answer questions, with "no clear right or wrong answer" and I spent hours doing it and still got a 66%, which was curved to 83%. In the end I got a B+ (the first ever non-A in my time at UCLA). Also, she sent out quite an insensitive email regarding too many people asking for help/extensions in response to COVID-19, which threw a lot of students off. Take this class at your own risk.

This class was brutal! I loved the content but omfg, her exams. Her TAs literally told us that she wrote them in a specific way to mark down as many people as possible. Her midterm was significantly easier than the final.

LECTURES
She doesn't record lectures or post her slides online. She doesn't cover all of the chapter material in the lecture, so she expects you to read and study the textbook after she's done. She usually hints at exam questions during lectures (some are red herrings, though).

MIDTERM EXAM
The midterm was significantly easier than the final. With that being said, it wasn't easy at all. You need to cover every line of the chapter, every vocabulary term on the sheets, and every case study for section to have a fighting chance at a good grade. She included an extra credit question at the end worth 5 points. The questions were worth so many marks: one short answer was worth 12/50 marks.

FINAL EXAM
The final was genuinely hellish. She had questions about things never covered in the lectures and only found in a tiny table in the chapter. The exam was literally made to deflate grades and keep a low average. I don't understand how it was fair, but that's just her style, I guess.

DISCUSSION SECTION
We had to read cases and answer a 3 question quiz every week. You could miss one quiz. Section was the least offensive part of the class.

OVERALL
I loved the material covered, but the way the class was graded and structured just killed it for me. If you think you can devote most of your time to this, then I would recommend it. I wouldn't encourage you to take this class unless you're ready to listen to her spout her often offensive political opinions and face her excruciating exams...

Very easy class, the textbook isn't really even needed as long as you go to lecture. Free points from weekly quizzes and midterm/final are both extremely easy, took most people around 1/3 - 1/2 of the total time. Johns is quite funny and hated on unnecessarily

I have never felt compelled to write a review before...but Professor Johns is the exception. She is the worst professor I have ever encountered during my time at UCLA. It's not because her class is difficult - in fact, her class is simply an exercise in pure memorization, requiring no critical thinking or intellectual stimulation. I do not like this class because Professor Johns lacks any sense of self-awareness and emotional intelligence. She is also a coward and a disgrace to the field of international law. Here are a few examples:

1) When discussing a case, she imitated a Muslim individual involved in the case - her false reenactment was extremely uncomfortable to watch and had no factual relevance to the case at hand. When a peer of mine called her out for incorrectly portraying Islamic beliefs, she did not offer a genuine apology and was very annoyed by them.

2) When various students asked to discuss Israel-Palestine and the Uyghur Genocide with her during office hours, she flat out refused. You see, Professor Johns does not care about your academic curiosity or the importance of discussing ongoing violations of international law - in her own words, she does not want to be canceled. But the HILARIOUS IRONY is that she wrote to the Chancellor calling for disciplinary action against students and faculty who do not support the systemic murder of Palestinian civilians. Professor Johns does not value academic freedom both in and outside of her classroom.

3. She, with absolutely no shame, said that the U.S. should redirect all of their aid that's intended for Afghanistan (to, you know, relieve starvation) to Ukraine instead. The complete hatred she has for brown people is tangible. Speaking of Ukraine, on the first day of class, she repeated multiple times about how she cried and could not leave her house for two weeks when Russia invaded Ukraine. It was so obvious how hard she was trying to fake empathy to the point where it left the room visibly uncomfortable. Most people have the emotional intelligence to not make war crimes about themselves and conjure up something that clearly never happened.

I started off truly enjoying this class and found most of our weekly case studies interesting. The class is based off of Prof. Johns textbook, and her midterm and final were difficult.

While the content was interesting, Prof. Johns herself is a different story. After a lecture on international law and war crimes, I approached Prof. Johns after class and said that I had a question regarding how international law applied to Palestine and the illegal settlements. She proceeded to say "I won't discuss Palestine." I was not interested in discussing politics or individual beliefs. I was simply interested in understanding the legal framework of an international issue, one that clearly falls in the purview of the title of her class: International Law.

How is a Professor of International Law at UCLA refusing to speak about an issue at the forefront of understanding the application of IL? I lost immense respect for her, but continued to remain engaged in class. A week later during lecture she made blatant Islamophobic comments in front of everyone, which she then was forced to apologize for the next class. It was frankly embarrassing. This theme continued, with her entertaining a conversation about the Uyghur Genocide in which a student stated most Muslims are terrorists. This class had so much potential, and it's unfortunate that Prof. Johns allowed her Islamophobic biases and her personal political beliefs to get in the way of her teaching.

I did well in this class; largely because the TA I had was fantastic. This professor is very classless, and went out of her way to post a public statement praising the brutalization of her own students for peacefully protesting. Out of principle, avoid this woman, she believes that those who disagree with her deserve to be shot with rubber bullets! Professor Johns, if you ever see this, I hope you reconsider your views and come to be ashamed of your behavior during this time.

Please read, my review gets REAL interesting... and REAL political... I took Leslie Johns in fall of the 2023-2024 school year. Honestly, the EXAM is not EASY. It is not impossible to do well on, but unfortunately, to even be able to do the two exams (midterm and final), you have to read the majority of Ms. Johns book, which is literally a manic manuscript. What I mean by that, is she sat down with her most biased knowledge of International law, and wrote for hours until she hit a couple hundred pages... her examples connect, but in the most hysterical and irrelevant way. She probably looked back at what she wrote, said okay, let's section this, got to add the sources and other necessities. Should I proofread? No, there are only a few (many) grammatical and structural errors. I did it! I did a book! Time to make my student's take an exam on it! She is a poor writer when it comes to the way she structures her book. Not to mention just writing errors she did not want to edit, which left clarity in the air. The TA's carry, but that is bc they even know her book, her class, and her thoughts are not it. Trust, they know she way ahead of herself... wayyyyyy... and it shows. She just talks during her lecture about the context of the class, but none of that will help you with the examination. Maybe she will mention a few names on the low because she obsesses over these irrelevant people who usually turned out racist or discriminatory and she will ask for their name on the exam to get a point or two, but those names are in the textbook... you'll see her bias when you read it. And bias indeed.

The recent encampments at UCLA has created a lot of distress on our campus, so if there is one thing you will learn about international law in this class with lovely Leslie (and its so underrepresented in her textbook, even though she knows its true), is that international law tries to fit in our world, but rarely ever does, hence the outcome is actors, past, present, future, getting off the hook for horrific crimes. I do not care if you disagree with me on the Israel/Palestine conflict, but the brass of it is that what Israel has been doing is a HUMANITARIAN CRISIS. If you must take the class, trust, I am giving a better introduction than Leslie ever will. The International Criminal Court (ICC) defines crimes against humanity as serious violations that occur as part of a widespread attack against civilians. Politics or not, you need to set aside your thoughts if you disagree with me and just think about how many Palestinians have died in the last several months since Israel had been attacked. You will learn there are still ways to address an attack as such, that does not include the death of 35,000 civilians and counting... whether you like my opinion or not, you will come to find in this class that this... this is an example of CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. Our campus encampment, was a safe place until attacked (if you do not know- UCLA Counterprotest Attack on April 30, 2024). I will not even blame Jewish people for this attack, it was not all Jewish people, it does not represent the Jewish population, and there ARE MANY jewish students (myself for one), WHO were in the encampment, WHO fully stand with the PEACE and rebuilding of Palestine—who protest for ANTI-WAR. Yes, there are agitators, on both ends. They. Do. Not. Represent. The. Overall. Population. I will also state that per the UCLA Code of Conduct and other documents you can attain from UCLA by request only - THE ENCAMPMENT WAS LEGAL.

So without further a do, here is Ms. Johns statement. I will remind you, this professor teaches INTERNATIONAL LAW at UCLA the #1 Public University. This professor, who teaches international law, MUST be understanding of humanitarian crisis, MUST know what war crimes are, MUST know the current news about the ICC. THE I.C.C. THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT EXPRESSING THE NEED FOR CEASEFIRE. Ms. Johns. MUST KNOW. Right?

Statement from Professor Leslie Johns on the UCLA Encampment - UNDER UCLA POLITICAL SCIENCE HOME.

"Dear Chancellor Block,

Thank you for taking action to remove the illegal Gaza Encampment from campus.

This action will greatly reassure Jewish students, faculty, and staff that they are safe and welcome on campus.

I urge you to follow up on this action by pursuing disciplinary actions against all involved students and faculty at the strictest level possible. This incident must not be repeated. A contentious election is coming up and I fear that this will become the “new normal” at UCLA if you don’t continue taking decisive action.

This incident is not yet over.

Best,

Leslie Johns
Professor of Political Science and Law"

Do not recommend this class. While I rarely struggle with memorization and managed to do okay with the free response sections of the exam, the multiple choice brought me down immensely. This class is very useful and teaches very interesting concepts but getting an A requires you to not only read through her 2000 page textbook, but also to pay attention to the minor details she only went over once. Not to mention, the court cases we actually went over in discussion, as well as the major concepts of the class, were not really tested on. If you truly want to learn the basics of international law, this class is helpful but be aware that getting an A requires an incredible amount of effort.

This course was very memorization heavy. The midterm and Final were designed to drop your grade.

Let me start off by saying, I absolutely loved this class. **I AM A TRANSFER student and this was my first political science course at UCLA.** This review is long, but if you care to read it, you will know what to expect.
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A lot of people are saying not to take it as a transfer, but don't be scared if this is what you're left with. At the start of the quarter, Professor Johns told us the transfers bit off more than they could chew. Ironically, I received a 94% on the midterm and my roommate (also a transfer) received a 96%. After taking the final, we are both confident we also received an A. Unlike most people might mention, the tests aren't insane. Professor Johns has likely made them easier over the years. If you study and learn the material, you will be fine. ***Heavy emphasis on glossary terms and major concepts discussed in lecture*** Memorize all the glossary terms and understand the concepts discussed in class (use book to gather more information on concepts)
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Yes, this class is a lot of work. Yes, sometimes the amount of reading each week will suck the life out of you. Yes, it can be very stressful. But... the material is genuinely interesting if you have a committed interest in international relations. Not to mention, Professor Johns is actually a super engaging lecturer, and her lectures always kept me interested even during early mornings. This class is by no means an easy A (especially since midterm and final make up 70% of the grade). I spent three weeks studying for them midterm, and two weeks for the final. I dedicated nearly 5-6 hours a week to the book readings, case studies, and studying for weekly section quizzes (which are super easy by the way and basically boost your grade). But, if you actually put in the work, attend lectures, do the readings, and learn the case studies in week, you will succeed in this course. I wholeheartedly believe it is possible to achieve an A+ in this course if you simply put in the hours and time. Just to mention, I didn't attend any office hours; just studied on my own and answered any questions through the book. FYI... Vincent, my TA, was great, and if you enrolled with him, you're in great hands.
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If you are going to law school, this class is for you. The readings, case studies, and exams mimic (allegedly) what you might expect at law school. Thus, this course is not only interesting, but great prep for anyone who wants to go down that path. Also, if interested, here is a layout of the class:
Weekly readings
Weekly section quizzes on case studies (usually 15-20 pages; quizzes are on background info from first 3 -5 pages, sometimes also asking about court judgments)
Midterm and Final (~30-40% MC and ~60-70% Free Response)