Human Rights: Principles and Polemics

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In this course we look at human rights from the inside: the obligations of states to uphold universal standards and the mechanisms in place to transform national injustices into international concerns giving rise to recommendations (but hardly sanctions) to governments, and accountability tools to civil society. These obligations and mechanisms have been created after 1948 when the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations. Human rights are a universal language intended to end discrimination and violence, reduce human suffering and promote human development. Much has been achieved, in only a few decades, in international law. But even more needs to be done in the national practice of states, in our own and other countries, through the concerted efforts of all of us as responsible members of a global community and its human rights instruments. The group sessions in this course are devoted to problem based tasks and discussion of assignments. Subjects to be discussed include universality and other key concepts, categories of rights, non-state actors, several vulnerable groups, and all kinds of mechanisms, institutions, committees and courts.