International Politics of Human Rights

About

Week one
Introductions
What are human rights? Where do they come from?
A social science approach to human rights
Excursion one

Week two
Why governments violate human rights: what we know
The role of domestic institutions: democracies and human rights practices
Excursion two
The consequences of domestic human rights violations: political instability, civil war and refugees

Week three
The role of international institutions: the international human rights regime and government human rights practices
The role of international institutions: the international financial regime, programme lending and government human rights practices
Excursion three
Myanmar: an in-depth examination of the consequences of human rights violations on refugees and civil conflict

Course leader

Dr Behar Sadriu

Course aim

This module aims to:

- Introduce you to the idea of what human rights are and different explanations about where rights come from.
- Examine how human rights have changed and become embedded in international law since World War II.
- Ask why governments repress the rights of their citizens.
- Try to understand the political advantage governments seek through violating human rights.
- Examine what the economic and social consequences of repression are.
- Examine whether previous cycles of repression, such as slavery, make countries more likely to use violence today.

Throughout the class you will use examples from the world around us to test and illustrate the arguments made in the literature. The conflicts in Myanmar, Syria and Iraq, and the former conflicts in Sri Lanka and the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland are a few examples.

Fee info