POL 398 Human Rights in International Law and Politics
Since the end of the Second World War human rights have played a growing role in international law and in international politics. The heinous atrocities committed during the war, unparalleled in history in scope and horror, aroused worldwide indignation and gave rise to the desire to establish new rules and reinforce existing norms that could guarantee respect for fundamental human rights internationally. Conventional international law was developed through a series of multilateral treaties sponsored by the United Nations and institutions to guarantee respect for these norms were established. In spite of the broad consensus on the need for these norms and the institutions, the expansion of human rights has been accompanied by controversy in both legal application and political interpretation and usage. This course will examine the historical development and philosophical bases of human rights from the ancient world to the present before looking at the role of human rights in international law as it has developed since the Second World War. The course will look at how the introduction of human rights into the area of international law has affected fundamental precepts of the international law system itself and some of the problems this has created. Treaty law, customary law and growing jurisprudence will be considered. The course will also review to the problems of enforcement and application of human rights law both on a national and international level and the functioning of the various institutions (tribunals, IGO’s and NGO’s) that have been established with this purpose in mind. Finally students will examine the political role of human rights in the foreign policies of states and other organizations (such as the European Union) and the major issues confronting human rights today (terrorism, civil wars, new areas of expansion of human rights, such as international environmental law or the distribution of energy resources or water and the question of humanitarian intervention).