International Human Rights Law

Learning Outcomes

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• make critical judgments about international materials and relevant literature.
• formulate an effectively reasoned and structured argument supported by appropriate references;
• demonstrate skills of self-management including an ability to reflect on the content and quality of your own work;

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• the scope of international human rights law: indivisibility of rights and key actors.
• the key mechanisms of protection of international human rights law;
• the history and sources of international human rights law;

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• analyse academic literature on international human rights law and situate your argument in relation to the arguments or positions advanced in that literature.
• apply the legal rules and principles studied on the module to factual scenarios;
• construct legal arguments through the analysis of relevant legal materials and literature;

This module will introduce you to international human rights law. Subject to availability of staff and their research expertise, we will explore the history and sources of international human rights law. We will cover various supranational mechanisms of protection through which international human rights law operates. We will examine the scope of this discipline by studying substantive rights and key actors in their implementation.

SYLLABUS

A – History and sources of international human rights law

B – Mechanisms of human rights protection in the United Nations and in regional systems

C – Scope of international human rights law: indivisibility of rights and key actors

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching Methods include

1.Lectures will provide you with knowledge and information within a structured context – reading is required in preparation.

2.Tutorials will require that you prepare answers to a list of questions supplied in advance – they allow you to maximise your performance in the summative assessments.

Learning Activities include

• Directed reading, assisted by reading lists and (sometimes) availability of materials on Blackboard;
• Accessing electronic resources in the form of international legal instruments, journal articles and primary materials;
• Reviewing and evaluating complex material
• Tackling and solving factual problems of international human rights law
• Formulating and presenting in oral form (through class participation) and in written form (assessed essay) reasoned and structured arguments
• Reading groups
• Debates
• Completion of summative assessment

Resources & Reading list

General Resources

Electronic Resources. Extensive use of electronically available resources – journal articles available via ‘Heinonline’, international treaty texts available from the UN’s website, cases from legal databases/institutions’ websites

Blackboard. All reading lists/ lecture hand-outs etc. are made available via ‘Blackboard’

Textbooks

Alison Bisset (ed) (2016). Blackstone's International Human Rights Documents. Blackstone's Statute Series.

Ilas Bantekas, Lutz Oette (2016). International Human Rights Law and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.