Enforcing Hum. Rghts: Actvsm

Catalog description

This course will examine the international framework for implementing human rights. While many treaties and declarations affirming human rights as an international norm exist, the institutional framework for ensuring those rights remains patchy and often lacking in the authority to halt violations or enforce decisions. Within such a context, what does it mean to invoke international human rights law? How do activists and social movements utilize the human rights institutions to further social justice goals? The course will begin with an overview of human rights law and institutions, both international and national, and then proceed with deep readings of key historical and contemporary cases. We will examine how the interactions between states, international institutions, activists and social movements produce different possibilities for the enforcement of human rights. Offered: fall or spring.