LL453 International Human Rights

This course is concerned with the international protection of human rights and its relation to a range of contemporary global problems involving deprivation, violence and exclusion. Recurring questions will be: in what ways does the international protection of human rights help in alleviating these problems, and in what ways does it instead serve to sustain the conditions for their occurrence? How might we understand the contribution of human rights to addressing contemporary ills and what are their particular limitations? Through the consideration of topical thematic issues, students will learn about, and critically analyse, human rights concepts, norms, institutions and actors.

The course is composed of five sections. The first section begins with a review of the key institutions and instruments which define the international human rights regime, along with some fundamental questions to do with the legal protection of human rights. The second is concerned with human rights and deprivation. Here we relate human rights to such issues as globalisation, poverty and climate change. The third section addresses human rights and violence. Here we consider the bearing of human rights for counter-terrorism, violence against women, war, and post-conflict. The fourth section of the course explores issues around identity, including non-discrimination and the prohibition of genocide. At the end of the course we take a step back to reflect on debates within and about international human rights, and explore the contribution, limits and further possibilities of this regime as a force for emancipatory change.