DIPL 4106 Human Rights Law and Policy

Momentum behind the idea of human rights has grown tremendously in recent decades. What began as a theoretical, utopian discourse has today become an important moral and political narrative in domestic and global affairs. At the same time, human rights remain controversial and contested, especially when they are in tension with cultural traditions or notions of sovereignty, or when their enforcement is seen as hypocritical or arbitrary. Gaps in the enforcement of human rights are conspicuous. There is a heavy shadow over the future of human rights as a global project, and many worry about its efficacy, its potential for fairness, and its legitimacy. This course examines the substance of human rights and the procedures through which it is monitored and enforced. It grapples with the tensions between actors who are responsible for the enforcement and protection of human rights, and tensions in the human rights regime itself. It tries to illuminate valid criticisms of human rights in all of their complexity, and to provide a broad but nuanced overview of the field.