International Human Rights and Atrocity Prevention

Catalog description

This course introduces you to the international framework for the protection of human rights with a specific focus on understanding human rights through the lens of atrocity prevention along all aspects of the continuum (pre-atrocity, atrocity, and post-atrocity contexts). The overall objective of this class is to provide you with an overview of the laws, norms, and institutions established in the wake of the Holocaust to protect and promote human rights, as well as the frames and strategies that human rights practitioners employ to prevent future atrocity crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Specifically, the class will examine human rights abuses that often precede atrocity crimes, and those that invariably continue after mass atrocities have occurred. Indicators that atrocity crimes may occur include extreme levels of intolerance, violence, racism, discrimination, extreme displacement and refugee flows, and the dehumanizing discourse that denies whole groups of people their dignity and rights.