Courses

    The international human rights movement is one of two major citizen movements that operates globally and that has a substantial impact on public policy internationally and, in many countries, also on a national level (the other is the international environmental movement). The course will examine the history of the human rights movement from the anti-slavery campaign in England in the second half of the eighteenth century to the present; the incorporation of human rights principles into international law; the manner in which the Cold War contributed to the rise in the significance of the movement and the manner in which the movement, on both sides of the Iron Curtain divide affected Cold War developments; the human rights movement’s discovery of international humanitarian law and its efforts to mitigate abuses in armed conflict; the movement’s focus on accountability for gross abuses of rights; and the movement’s effort to cope with counterterrorism restrictions on rights after September 11, 2001. Throughout, a focus will be on the methods used by the human rights movement and their effectiveness: documentation; promotion of human rights norms; campaigns focused on individual victims of abuses; establishment of national human rights commissions; domestic litigation; international litigation; creation of truth commissions; establishment of international criminal courts; pressure on “surrogate villains” – that is, governments that support other governments that commit abuses; adoption of international treaties (eg., the landmines treaty); and so forth. When, where and how is it appropriate to use particular methods? How does one assess the public policy consequences? Who benefits and how?