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Essay plan (300 words)

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The module is organised into three themes: (i) histories of human rights, (ii) theories of human rights, and (iii) practices of human rights. Each theme enables you to develop a critical understanding of the material.   
 
In looking at the history of human rights the course will focus on competing claims for when and how human rights were/are created – contrasting views that see them as a contemporary development with those that seek to trace a longer lineage, and considering differing accounts of how human rights are made, whether through law by the actions of political authorities or through contestation expressed by social movements and revolutionary politics.  
 
The course then turns to theories of human rights to consider both what human rights are and how their authority is justified – looking at universal accounts of rights that presume the necessary transcendence of the national state and those that see rights as necessarily bound to forms of civil community. This conventional dichotomy is problematized by looking at the interrelationship of morality and law with power and violence.  
 
The final part of the course looks at the diverse practices of human rights in world politics, looking to the place of human rights in national contexts, within transnational organisations and as part of global social movements. In addition to offering a general look at human rights practices this portion of the course will look at specific rights regimes and specific rights in detail, as examples: the political movement for a human right to housing in the US, the European human rights regime’s response to torture, and the international controversy over the right to development.

Feedback is provided in a number of ways throughout your module. This includes feedback you receive during teaching from both peers and lecturers and that provided for formative assessment. Following an assessment, you will be given your marks and feedback in line with the assessment regulations and policy. More information on the timing and type of feedback that will be provided for each assessment will be available from the module leader. <a href='https://www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/about/governance/policies/student-policies-and-regulations'>https://www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/about/governance/policies/student-policies-and-regulations</a>

This module will support the development of all the graduate attributes. Your module leader will provide you with information about how your learning, teaching and assessment activities support your development of these attributes. The graduate attributes are: - Always learning - Engaged in the world - Technical and digital - Connected Professional - Creating Impact

In-Person - 

Self-directed - 

Human Rights in International Relations

Journal of Political Philosophy, Volume 12, 190-213

Minimalism About Human Rights: The Most We Can Hope For?

Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique

The Evolution of International Human Rights: Visions Seen

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting and Intent

Volume 15, 265-286 

International Regimes for Human Rights

Inventing Human Rights: A History

After Evil: A Politics of Human Rights

The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History

The Divided World: Human Rights and Its Violence

Universal Human Rights in a World of Difference

The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era

Harvard International Law Journal, Volume 42, 201-245

Savage, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights

Volume 137, Number 3, 94-104

The Legitimacy of Human Rights

Philosophy & Public Affairs, Volume 32, 315-356

Elements of a Theory of Human Rights

Human Rights and Empire: The Political Philosophy of Cosmopolitanism 

IPM130 - Human Rights and the Transformation of World Politics

IPM130-PRD1-PER-ALV1

The class will be taught with a combination of lecture and interactive seminar. In addition to the readings for each week followed by an intensive discussion, students will spend time on a host of "real-world"-directed activities designed to inculcate a habit of learning-by-doing. Practical readings drawn from the news will form the basis of weekly questions that have to be answered in class. In addition, the class as a whole will be directed towards relevant events, films, and exhibitions around London that will them form the basis of collective discussion in class.

Human Rights and the Transformation of World Politics

Assess the role that human rights play in effecting the actions of government and private actors as standards that are to be upheld legally and socially. 

Skills

Identify the institutions that have human rights responsibilities and the capacity to implement and create human rights. 

Knowledge

Apply your analytical skills to oral and written arguments that are critical and well-supported. 

Develop capacity to review the broad impact, both intended and unintended, of human rights in political, business and social contexts. 

Values and attitudes

Evaluate the role of human rights in shaping contemporary international politics as part of a shift away from the supremacy of state sovereignty. 

Make independent critical judgements about the value and efficacy of human rights as an idea and institution. 

Assess the development and place of human rights in world politics – including the domestic, international and global levels. 

Critically analyse work emerging from media and government sources as to their ramifications for the practice and institutions of human rights. 

Critically analyse complex text in a variety of disciplines. 

Develop capacity to value diversity and work within a group. 

Appraise the approaches to defining what human rights are and how they are justified ethically, legally and politically. 

Respect for the diversity of interests and values that are held in regards to human rights

Recognise the diverse ways in which human rights shape world politics from the local to the global level. 

Critically analyse the contested nature of the historical development of human rights as an idea and political practice. 