PS 1675 - POLITICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Minimum Credits: 3
Maximum Credits: 3
Human rights have become the dominant normative discourse in global politics today. They are invoked by world leaders justifying military or 'humanitarian' interventions and by local and indigenous social movements challenging their domination with existing systems of social relations. They are lauded as essential to human dignity and decried as tools of imperialism and neo-colonialism. They are tools of the oppressor and tools for the oppressed. How can we make sense of these seemingly contradictory uses and understandings of human rights? This course seeks to explain human rights as fundamentally contested political claims. It develops this perspective through attention to the real politics of human rights, surveying existing human rights law and institutions, examining several important contemporary human rights issues, and reflecting on the different tools that political and social science offer for making sense of these controversies. The emphasis is on helping students to acquire a critical understanding of human rights that they can use to assess contemporary events; all students will focus on a particular country and issue of their choosing throughout the course as a way of grounding, focusing, and applying their learning.
Academic Career: Undergraduate
Course Component: Lecture
Grade Component: LG/SNC Elective Basis

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