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International Human Rights - LAWS8181

Faculty: Faculty of Law

School: Faculty of Law

Course Outline: See below

Campus: Sydney

Career: Postgraduate

Units of Credit: 6

EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)

Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 2

Enrolment Requirements:

Pre-requisite: Academic Program must be 9200 or 9210 or 5740 or 9230 or 9240 or 5760 or 9281 or 5281 or 9211 or 5211 or 9285 or 5285 or 9220 or 5750.

Excluded: JURD7781

CSS Contribution Charge: 3 (more info)

Tuition Fee: See Tuition Fee Schedule

Further Information: See Class Timetable

View course information for previous years.

Description

This course involves a study of the fundamental legal principles and institutions of international human rights, through the medium of contemporary human rights concerns. The course begins with an examination of the human rights framework in international law and the mechanisms for enforcing human rights including consideration of the position of the United Nations in this era of reform. The course also focuses on gross human rights violations and the responsibility of the international community to protect, terrorism, globalisation, and discrimination law among other contemporary topics. This course is part of a general offering of human rights and social justice topics within the UNSW Law School and aims to provides students with an introductory approach to select human rights issues.

This course is also available to students undertaking relevant postgraduate non-law degree programs at UNSW, provided such enrolment is approved by the appropriate non-law Faculty.

LLM Specialisations

Human Rights and Social Justice
International Law

Recommended Prior Knowledge

None

Course Objectives

Aims of the course are:

To examine and analyse the main legal concepts and principles of international human rights law
To assess the effectiveness of avenues for enforcement of international human rights principles and law
To develop the skills necessary for communicating and debating the role human rights play in the development of law and society

At the end of this course, you should be able to:

Have a sound knowledge of the main legal concepts and principles of international human rights law
Explain in your own words the meaning of legal concepts, doctrines and principles we have studied
Analyse the primary sources of human rights law
Demonstrate an ethical understanding of the nature of human rights law and be aware of on-going and future issues in the area of human rights
Demonstrate your ability to think critically and to justify your ideas in a reasoned manner, rather than purely by way of dogmatic assertions or emotional responses communicate effectively in speaking and in writing

Main Topics

What are human rights?
Contemporary concerns: human rights issues, for example this may include genocide; discrimination; death penalty and/or the impact of globalisation
Framework of the human rights system
Human rights enforcement

Assessment

Class participation 10%
(Performance and participation in class)

Short answer question 15%
(One 750 words max.)

Research essay 75%
(5,000 - 5,500 words )

Course Texts

Prescribed

Adam McBeth, Justine Nolan & Simon Rice, The Law of International Human Rights, OUP, 2011

Recommended
None

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Resources

Refer to Course Outline provided by lecturer at the beginning of the relevant semester.