Course 2017-2018 a.y.

Classes: 31 (I sem.)

Instructors:
Class 31: GRAZIELLA ROMEO

The course aims to provide students with a deep comprehension of the main aspects of the protection of civil liberties and human rights at the national level, from both a comparative and an historical perspective, and at the international level.
The first part of the course provides a theoretical framework regarding the protection of rights. It firstly addresses the possible definitions of rights, including those meanings and categories that trace back their origin under the most diverse legal traditions. Then, classes are devoted to the analysis of rights within the political process, exploring the role of judges in contemporary democracies. After having explored the domestic level of rights recognition and protection, the classes addresses the supranational mechanisms (the ECHR as well as the European Union Charter of fundamental rights) and eventually the international mechanisms for protection of human rights.
The second part of the course explores the law in action on the basis of the theoretical framework set up in the first part. Consequently it focuses on specific cases concerning the protection of rights. Cases change on an annual basis, according to the emerging trend or leading decisions of Constitutional and/or Supranational Courts.

• Civil liberties and human rights: definitions between positivism and ius naturale.
• The general categories: fundamental rights, claim rights, enumerated and unenumerated rights.
• Rights and democracy: rights, political process and the role of judges.
• Rights and citizenship.
• Rights in multilevel dynamics: the rise of a rights discourse in the EU.
• Rights in the European Convention on Human Rights.
• The role of the State in the protection of human rights.
• The question of the extraterritorial application of human rights treaties.
• Derogable and non derogable human rights.
• Respect for human rights in times of emergency and armed conflict.
• International Mechanism for the protection of human rights.

Second part - Cases discussion.

• Civil rights.
• The so called new rights (the right to truth, the right to sexual identity).
• Social rights.

Students sit a written exam, consisting in two open questions and ten multiple-choice questions to be completed in one hour and half.

For attending students

• For online articles and class materials see the syllabus.

For non attending students

• I. BANTEKAS, L. OETTEtte, International Human Rights Law and Practice, last edition, only the following chapters: 1, 4 (4.1 and 4.6), 6 (6.1 and 6.2), 8, 13, 14 (14.8 and 14.9), 15.
• M.H. KRAMER, N.E. SIMMONDS, H. STEINER, A Debate Over Rights, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2002, only chapter 1.