International Law and Human Rights

What are "Human Rights"? This course explores the development of international law and human rights from the 1700s to the present, examining how the meaning of "human rights" has shifted over time. While the course is anchored in the United States, it will analyze broader global debates over "human rights" that were sparked by slavery, imperial conquest, migration, genocide, the law of warfare, the creation and disappearance of states, gender violence, and mass expulsions. Who defined human rights and what mechanisms were developed to address abuses? The course takes both a "bottom up" and a "top down" approach. It pays close attention to how individuals and groups-- the victims of abuses-- shaped international law and human rights. It also examines the responses of both governmental (the State Department, the United Nations, the World Court) and non-governmental organizations (e.g. Amnesty International) in negotiating treaties, holding trials and hearings, investigatings and processing claims, and creating new international standards and conventions on human rights. 

Elective for History, Justice Studies, International Affairs