Legal Studies and Spanish & Latin American Studies

Legal studies and Spanish and Latin American studies is a combination that brings together two disciplines with deep and immediate relevance to the contemporary world. Law provides a framework for understanding how societies regulate themselves, resolve disputes, and protect rights, and the legal studies strand gives you a solid grounding in legal thinking, European law, and the way legislation shapes everyday life. Spanish and Latin American studies adds a major world language alongside engagement with the literatures, histories, and cultures of the Spanish-speaking world, from Iberia through the Caribbean to South America.

At the University of Aberdeen you will study across four years on a full-time programme, with a year abroad that takes your language learning to a high level and immerses you in a Spanish-speaking academic or cultural environment. The programme develops your analytical skills in both disciplines: legal studies trains you to interpret texts precisely, reason from principles to cases, and identify where law reflects or distorts underlying values. Spanish and Latin American studies develops your capacity for close reading, cultural analysis, and sustained argument in a second language.

The combination is particularly rewarding for students interested in international law, human rights, trade law, or the specific legal and political dynamics of Latin America, where questions of constitutional change, indigenous rights, and environmental law are among the most pressing and contested in the world.

Graduates of this combination follow a variety of paths. Those who wish to qualify as solicitors or advocates can take the required professional qualifications in Scotland or England and Wales. International law, human rights work, and roles in European or multilateral institutions draw naturally on the degree's combination of legal and linguistic competence.

Careers in diplomacy, international organisations, journalism covering Latin America, and the charity sector working on human rights or development are further directions. Postgraduate study in law, Latin American studies, international relations, or translation is a natural progression.