All courses are 4000-level and are designed for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. Each is worth 3 credit points.
Session I: May 23 – July 1
HRTS S4020 Introduction to Human Rights
Joseph Chuman
Monday, Wednesday
1:00-4:10
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
4:30-7:40
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 Business and Human Right
Joanne Bauer and Faris Natour
Tuesday, Thursday
4:00-7:10
What is a company's responsibility for human rights? Does global business impact human rights positively or negatively or both? In this course we will explore the answers to these and other questions. The course is designed to provide students the opportunity to learn about the growing importance of human rights and their impact in the world today through an in-depth examination of the field of human rights and business. We examine the scope of businesses’ human rights responsibilities both in general and in specific cases, the development of corporate responsibility principles and standards, the range of human rights issues facing business operations abroad, and the strategies employed by human rights advocates and businesses to address the human rights impact of corporate activities. The course encourages students to develop critical thinking skills around the relationship between human rights and business.
Session II: July 6 – August 13
HRTS S4220 International Human Rights Law
Belinda Cooper
Monday, Wednesday
2:00-5:10
International Human Rights Law will begin on July 11th rather than July 6th. Two make-up classes will be scheduled on Fridays. View the complete course schedule.
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.
HRTS S4404 Human Rights of Women
Deirdre Fottrell
Monday, Wednesday
5:30-8:40
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 S4290 Health and Human Rights
Joanne Csete
Tuesday, Thursday
4:00-7:10
This class is an introduction to the discipline of health and human rights — that is, to the application of human rights norms and tools to public health and particular challenges within public health. Through case examples of specific public health problems, students will see the way that laws and policies (sometimes embodying human rights norms and sometimes not) shape public health responses and will be challenged to develop human rights-based approaches to public health problems. A wide range of issues — sexual and reproductive rights, HIV/AIDS, health problems of criminalized populations, and others — are explored to illustrate the importance of sustained human rights inquiry and analysis in public health.
