Dr Claire Moon, STC. S267 and Dr Margot Salomon, TW2. V503

Compulsory core course for MSc Human Rights students. Also available as an option for postgraduate students in the Sociology Department and for those registered on the LLM. The course is available as an outside option for other MSc degrees where regulations and numbers permit. This course is capped but a limited number of places are available to students from outside the MSc in Human Rights. Students from other programmes who wish to apply for a place on SO424 must complete the online application form on LSEforYou, stating reasons for wishing to take the course.

This is a multi-disciplinary course that provides students with a rigorous and focused engagement with three central disciplinary perspectives on the subject of human rights: philosophy, sociology and law (international and domestic). It provides students with contending interpretations of human rights as an idea and practice from the different standpoints that these disciplines present (including debates from within and between the disciplines), and investigates the particular knowledge claims and modes of reasoning that the respective disciplines engage. The course applies the insights of disciplinary frameworks of understanding to key human rights issues such as the right to life, free speech, war, genocide, transitional justice, relativism, group rights, poverty, globalization, terrorism and civil liberties.

The course is divided into five blocks of lectures. The first block covers the philosophy of human rights and incorporates discussions of political philosophy and rights discourse, foundations of rights, theories of rights, rights claimants and claims, and global justice and human rights. Philosophical perspectives are applied to specific issues which may include the right to life, animal rights, and humanitarian intervention. The second block looks at human rights from the perspective of international law and considers the tools of international law as applied to the protection of human rights, the post-1945 international human rights architecture, the content of various human rights and the scope of obligations; as well as current limits of international human rights law. Specific issues discussed may include socio-economic rights, globalization and world poverty, and new human rights duty-bearers. The third block is delivered from the perspective of domestic law and includes discussion of the idea of rights in domestic legal discourses, legal reasoning in the European Court of Human Rights, legal reasoning in domestic rights' courts, and restricting rights. Issues discussed may include civil liberties, bills of rights and terrorism. The fourth block covers human rights from a sociological perspective and looks at the idea of rights in classical and contemporary sociological theory, human rights and human rights violations as social construction, knowledge and denial of atrocity and theories of perpetration. Sociological insights are applied to empirical issues which may include genocide, transitional justice, human rights reporting and the perpetrators of atrocity. The final block of lectures combines the different disciplinary perspectives in order to discuss a number of challenges and contentions related to cosmopolitan human rights, culture, sovereignty and new forms of warfare. It also enquires into possible future developments in human rights.

20 weekly lectures and 20 weekly workshops commencing in week one of the MT. The course is co-taught by Professor Chetan Bhatt, Dr Alasdair Cochrane, Professor Conor Gearty, Dr Claire Moon and Dr Margot Salomon.

Active participation in the workshops is expected and students may be asked to make a presentation to their group. In addition, students have the option of writing two formative 1,500 word practice essays, one in the MT and one in the LT, in preparation for the assessed essay. The practice essays do not count towards the final mark.

Attendance at all workshops and submission of all summative coursework is required.

No one book covers the entire syllabus and students are expected to read widely from more general texts on human rights, to more specific texts outlining the debates on human rights from a particular disciplinary perspective.

Relevant books that provide an introduction and overview of the key areas include: Jack Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice; Michael Freeman, Human Rights; Henry J Steiner, Philip Alston and Ryan Goodman, International Human Rights Law in Context: Law, Politics, Morals.

Philosophy: P. Jones, Rights, (1994); A. Swift, Political Philosophy: a Beginners' Guide for Students and Politicians, (2006). International Law: A. Cassese, International Law, 2nd ed. (2005), chapter 19; P. Sieghart, The Lawful Rights of Mankind (1985). Domestic Law: C. A. Gearty, Principles of Human Rights Adjudication (2004); H. Fenwick, G. Phillipson and R. Masterman (eds), Judicial Reasoning under the UK Human Rights Act (2007); Sociology: L. Morris, Rights: Sociological Perspectives (2006); B. Turner, Vulnerability and Human Rights (2006);  A. Woodiwiss, Human Rights (2005), part 1.

There are two components to the assessment of SO424. One assessed essay of 3,000 words (worth 30% of the overall mark), two hard copies to be handed in to the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, V510, before 4pm on the first Tuesday of ST and a third copy to be posted to Moodle. One written examination paper (worth 70% of the overall mark) in which three questions out of twelve must be answered.