The protection and promotion of human rights is one of the most important political developments of the post-war global order. The human rights obligations of states are defined by a growing body of international treaty law and are interpreted and applied by courts operating at the domestic, regional, and international levels. Sophisticated monitoring mechanisms now exist to track compliance with these obligations. Governments that fail to uphold their obligations are subject to “naming and shaming” by domestic and international audiences and to censure by their peers. This module will provide an introduction to the documents, institutions, and cases that define contemporary international human rights law.

This module has three goals:
(1) To equip students to use international law as a tool for human rights work;
(2) To explore the importance of international human rights law at a moment when human rights is often described as being “in retreat”; and
(3) To examine the international human rights law dimensions of current global political developments including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the Black Lives Matter movement.

TEACHING DELIVERY

This is a compulsory module for the Human Rights MA and enrolment is restricted to students on the course.

Each week of the module will comprise of a lecture and a seminar. The lectures will provide an introduction to the week’s topic and an overview of the key themes of the readings, which will draw primarily from case law, UN documents, NGO reporting, and academic scholarship. The weekly seminar will provide an opportunity for deeper engagement with the material through small group discussions, simulations, and practical skills-building exercises.

By the end of this module, students should:
(1) Understand how human rights practitioners, across a variety of different career paths, use law in their work;
(2) Have a good grasp of the foundational documents, institutions, and actors that make up the contemporary international human rights regime;
(3) Be comfortable performing legal research, including reading human rights case law; and
(4) Be able to engage critically with the political dynamics that inform both the structure and content of international human rights law, and its impact on behaviour.