Human Rights and Human Wrongs

Catalog description

This course will examine the tension between two contradictory trends in world politics. On the one hand, the twentieth century had seen some of the most brutal practices ever perpetrated by states against their populations in the form of genocide, systematic torture, severe political repression, mass murder and ethnic cleansing. Events in the first two decades of the 21st century suggest that these trends will not end anytime soon. At the same time, since the middle of the twentieth century, for the first time in human history there has been a growing global consensus that all individuals are entitled to at least some level of protection from abuse by their governments. This concept of human rights has been institutionalized through international law, diplomacy, international discourse, transnational activism, and the foreign policies of many states. This seminar will try to make sense of these contradictions.