Women's Human Rights

Catalog description

This course examines the struggle of women to become full and legitimate bearers of human rights through grassroots activism and integration of the concept of women’s human rights into the international human rights system. We will examine the influences feminism brought into international human rights, the importance of the concept of gender in women’s human rights and apply these to analyze and critique government and NGO policies and programs. Students will discuss the processes by which treaty bodies at both the international and regional levels monitor State Party compliance, including applying the analysis to case studies. The course will address content and implementation of CEDAW and relevance of other treaties such as ICCPR and ICESCR as well as the IACHR at the regional level. In particular, we will examine the right to freedom from violence perpetrated either by the state or by non-state actors, such as domestic violence, sexual assault and harassment, torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, sex and labor trafficking. We will examine sexual and reproductive rights and the push back against these. We will also examine the right to participate in political processes.