All courses are 4000-level and are designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Each is worth 3 credit points.
Session I: May 21 – June 29
HRTS S4020 Introduction to Human Rights
Joseph Chuman
Monday, Wednesday
1:00pm – 4:10pm
This course will provide a wide-ranging survey of conceptual foundations and issues in contemporary human rights. The class will examine the philosophical origins of human rights, their explication in the evolving series of international documents, as well as questions of enforcement through international law and treaty arrangements.
The course will also examine contemporary topics that are in the forefront of concern, among them - the status of women, refugees, children, the use of torture and the horrors of genocide. Though the course emphasizes political rights, it also recognizes the evolution of the human rights culture, the growing importance of economic rights and tensions related to globalization and multiculturalism.
The broad range of subjects covered in the course is intended to assist students in honing their interests and making future course selections in the human rights field.
HRTS S4730 Transitional Justice
Louis Bickford
Monday, Wednesday
6:00pm – 9:10pm
Dealing with the legacies of past human rights abuse or atrocity — whether committed under authoritarian regimes, in the midst of conflict, or in established democracies — represents certain opportunities and challenges. This course focuses on the field of transitional justice, a set of policy prescriptions that include prosecuting past offenders (in various venues or at various levels, including international, domestic, and hybrid courts); truth commissions (sometimes called “truth and reconciliation commissions”); the thorny question of amnesty; memory work, such as creating museums, sites of memory, and new-paradigm war memorials; and reparation. Throughout the course, we will also examine reconciliation, gender, and the idea of guarantees of non-repetition (i.e. “never again”). Cases examined will include Argentina, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Ghana, Iraq, Kenya, Morocco, Peru, Sierra Leone, South Africa, and Timor-Leste.
HRTS S4180 Human Rights and Business
Joanne Bauer and Christine Bader
Tuesday, Thursday
4:00pm – 7:10pm
Since the 1990s, there has been increased focus and debate on the role of business with respect to human rights. Business has contributed to millions of people around the world being lifted out of poverty; but at the same time companies in all industries have contributed to human rights abuses, such as exploitative working conditions in factories, social unrest and environmental destruction around oil and mining projects, and censorship and surveillance by internet service providers. This course is an in-depth exploration of the relationship between business and human rights: from a historical perspective, as we discuss the evolution of the debate about corporate social responsibility and business’s responsibilities with respect to human rights, then from an applied perspective as we focus on particular cases, industries, and issues. By the end of the course, students should have a solid grounding in the background and current issues related to business and human rights; understand the positions of different stakeholder groups; and be able to critically evaluate the responsibilities and actions of key actors in situations where corporate-related human rights abuses have occurred, including what prevention and/or mitigation steps could be effective.
HRTS S4220 International Human Rights Law
Maya Sabatello
Tuesday, Thursday
12:00pm – 3:10pm
This course provides an introduction to the legal aspects of international human rights. We will cover the major international human rights documents and treaties, the substance of the laws they create, and the international procedures and mechanisms for implementing them. We will consider some of today’s most significant human rights issues and controversies, such as the prohibition of hate speech, the treatment of Guantanamo detainees, the use of torture, and the legality of humanitarian intervention to prevent genocide.
This course will enable you to: explain the bases and significance of international human rights law; analyze the content of international human rights documents and cases; understand international enforcement mechanisms for human rights; debate opposing sides of important human rights issues; write advocacy essays; and engage in substantive research on human rights issues.
Session II: July 2 – August 10
HRTS S4404 Human Rights of Women
Sheila A. Dauer
Tuesday, Thursday
4:10pm – 7:20pm
This class uses a gender perspective to explore key issues related to women and human rights. This course will address gender as a subject of human rights and examine emerging and contested issues with a focus on international human rights law. The course introduces the international legal framework for the protection of women's rights and reviews regional and universal mechanisms which have been developed in the past three decades in particular. In addition, the course reviews comparative constitutional approaches to women's human rights, looking at case examples from the US, South Africa, the Americas, Europe and South Asia.
The development of women's human rights is examined through a series of themes. Among the issues considered are regional systems and the UN system, equality in the public sphere and in the family, violence against women, religion and women’s rights, and reproductive rights. Guest speakers from NGOs are invited to address specific themes where appropriate.
HRTS S4810 Children’s Rights
Tracey Holland
Tuesday, Thursday
12:50pm – 4:00pm
Every nation in the world, except for Somalia and the USA, has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. As a result children’s rights are beginning to play a major role in the human rights field generally – constitutions have been modified, legislative frameworks revamped, and dedicated national institutions established. In addition, international organizations and non-governmental groups have sped up their efforts to adopt a child rights framework that supports the development of their programs and policies for children. And yet, the children’s rights field remains under-theorized and under-researched. Many scholars and practitioners call for a better understanding of the conceptual and empirical underpinnings of policy and practice in this area. The course focuses on both the theory and practice of children’s rights, starting with the question of whether children really should be treated as rights-holders and whether this approach is more effective than the alternatives. Consideration will be given to the major conceptual and developmental issues embedded within the framework of rights in the CRC. Specific issues will include both those of a domestic and international nature: children’s rights in the criminal justice context including life without parole and the death penalty; children’s rights to housing and health care; inequities in the education systems; child labor and efforts to ban it worldwide; initiatives intended to abolish the involvement of children in armed conflict; street children; the rights of migrant, refugee, homeless, and minority children; and the commodification of children. Country case studies will be employed to ensure that students have a solid grounding in current conditions. The course also explores the US ratification of the Convention, and will critically examine the advocacy and education work of international children’s rights organizations and multilateral agencies around the world.
HRTS S4190 Human Rights and the Image
Susan M. Merriam
Monday, Wednesday
12:50pm – 4:00pm
This course examines the relationship between visual culture and human rights. It considers a wide range of visual media (photography, painting, sculpture), as well as aspects of visuality (surveillance, profiling). We will use case studies ranging in time from the early modern period (practices in which the body was marked to measure criminality, for example), to the present day. Within this framework, we will study how aspects of visual culture have been used to advocate for human rights, as well as how images and visual regimes have been used to suppress human rights. An important part of the course will be to consider the role played by reception in shaping a discourse around human rights, visuality, and images. Subjects to be addressed include: the nature of evidence; documentation and witness; censorship; iconoclasm; surveillance; profiling; advocacy images; signs on the body; visibility and invisibility.
