30482 - HUMAN RIGHTS

This course aims at understanding human rights as embedded in specific historical circumstances, and looks at their codification in international law as the product of heated political debates.

The course is articulated in three interlocking learning units.

1. In the first one, historical, we trace the genealogy of the concept paying particular attention to its continuity or discontinuity with respect to the notion of natural law, and we focus on the birth of the “human rights regime.”
2. In the second, we look at specific cases, and in the third we look at critical readings of human rights as possibly an instrument for “Western hegemony,” or as inadequate in other ways.

• Know the content of the most important documents in the “human rights regime".
• Understand the path that lead to the formulation of these documents and the significance of debates on universality. 
• Understand the political stakes behind the affirmation of one formulation or another.

• Have an informed opinion about the foundation of human rights, if any.
• Become (more) aware of your political beliefs on human rights and of the histories and struggles behind them.
• Develop an enduring intellectual and political interest in this concept (whether as an advocate or a critic, or both) that is rooted in knowledge about its development, historical background, and founding documents.

• Face-to-face lectures
• Case studies /Incidents (traditional, online)
• Individual assignments
• Group assignments

• We apply theoretical knowledge acquired to the study of relevant cases.
• Attending students have the opportunity to earn extra credit via individual and group assignments.