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Understanding Human Rights

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core NA 4

Course coordinator and team: Dr. Manisha Chaurasiya, Assistant Professor, Global Studies

a. Summary:

This course attempts to build an understanding of Human Rights (HR) among students. It introduces the various meanings, historical evolution, conceptual foundations and theories. It is important for students to see how major debates on human rights have taken distinct forms historically and in the contemporary world. Are human rights universal or is there cultural relativism? Should human rights be understood from a strict western individual rights perspective or and should the non- western collective rights understanding be also accommodated under the purview of HR? Are HR global, guaranteed and safeguarded by international law or could be guaranteed by national constitutions The paper highlights these key questions in the form of debates. The institutionalisation of HR has been sub divided into two timelines. The precursors to the rights based narratives of democratic states like the American Bill of Rights, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen etc. This section looks at the major institutionalisation of HR in the 20th century. The global and international HR discussions, treaties and institutions largely stem from the United Nations, like the UDHR, etc. In this regard the course welcomes discussions on the rights of the refugees, rights of the child, rights of women etc.

b. Objectives

The course will help students in the following ways:

  • To familiarise students with fundamental conceptual foundations, meanings and theories on human rights.
  • To introduce students to key global institutionalisation on human rights and their role in the global order.
  • To introduce the students to the treaties and institutions that have been predecessors to, and form the foundation to the present human rights institutions around the world.
  • To help students evolve a comprehensive understanding on the major debates in human rights discipline.
  • Develop a critical understanding of some key challenges to HR from a position of the global south, specifically focusing on some of the major challenges to HR in South Asia.
  • To encourage students to engage with diverse source material and learning methods and gain skills in writing, analysis and articulation.

c. Learning Outcomes:

This course is expected to equip students to apply their understanding and research skills acquired in this course in research assignments and in life. On completion of this course students are therefore expected to:

1. Acquire the knowledge and skill to understand the theory and evolution of human rights and identify violations.

2. Develop an in-depth understanding of various case studies both globally and in South Asia highlighting the violations in human rights.

 

S. No

Module Name

Week/s

Module 1

Human Rights: Evolution, History and Theory

3 weeks

 

(i) Various meanings and definitons of Human Rights (HR), the evolution of the idea of ‘the human’ as the subject of human rights.

(ii) The conceptual and philosophical foundations of HR: HR as natural rights.

(iii) Moral and normative values attached to HR, and HR as inalienable rights.

(iv) Key differences between HR and legal, political and constitutional rights.

(v) Human Rights, international justice and global justice: HR as a relevant safeguard against persecution and deprivation

(vi) The Generation of Rights: First, Second, Third and Fourth

(vii) Some major debates: Individual and collective rights debate, Universal and cultural relativism debate, Global human rights and constitutional rights debate.

 

Module 2

Institutionalisation of Human Rights

2 weeks

 
  1. Philosophical anticidents to the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR): The Bill of Rights, the French declaration.
  2. The Key Global Institutionalisation in the 20th century: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, UN Covenant on Cultural, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Human Rights Council.
  3. Some notable violation specific global institutionalisation: The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (Racism),  the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment (Torture), the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Gender), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Child Labor and abuse), the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugees and stateless persons).
  4. Analysing some national constitutions: India and South Africa

 

Module 3

Relevant and contemporary challenges to Human Rights in South Asia

4 weeks

 
  1. Socio-cultural-religious practices and human rights deprivations in South Asia: Female foeticide and infanticide, child marriage, circumcision and personal law.
  2. Gender and caste based violence: India- manual scavenging, Pakistan, Nepal
  3. Religious violence and violence against ethnic minorities, conversion as tool against minority communities, blasphemy etc.: Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Bangladesh

 

Module 4

Understanding HR through some case studies

 4 weeks

 
  1. Genocide: Understanding the Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979)
  2. War: A case study of the Syrian Civil War, civilian displacement and torture and the use of chemical weapons,
  3. Minorities: PRC and the handling of minority communities, a case study of the Uyghur Detention Camps in China.
  4. Modern forms of systemic Racism: Understanding the Police Brutality in the United States against Black Populations, Killing of George Floyd.

 

Essential Readings:

  • Hannum, H. (1989). International Law and Cambodian Genocide: The Sounds of Silence. Human Rights Quarterly, 11(1), 82–138. Kiernan, B. (2002). The Pol Pot regime: Race, power, and genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975-79. Yale University Press.
  • Finley, J. L. (2021). Repressing Uyghur Identity in China: The Global Implications of Surveillance, Imprisonment, and Forced Labor. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 62(1), 63-86.
  • Roberts, S. C. (2018). The biopolitics of China’s “war on terror” and the exclusion of the Uyghurs. Critical Asian Studies, 50(2), 232-258.
  • United Nations. (2014). Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. Twenty-seventh session, Agenda item 4, human rights situations that require the council's attention. UN.
  • Monnat, S. M. (2010). Toward a Critical Understanding of Gendered Color-Blind Racism Within the U.S. Welfare Institution. Journal of Black Studies, 40(4), 637–652.
  • Thiago Amparo & Andressa Vieira e Silva (2022), “George Floyd at the UN: Whiteness, International Law, and Police Violence,” Irvine Journal of International, Transnational, and Comparative Law , volume 91. Available at: https://scholarship.law.uci.edu/ucijil/vol7/iss1/5
  • Andrew Clapham (2015), Human Rights: A Very Short Introduction, Second Edition, Oxford University Press. Chp 2 Historical development and contemporary concerns.
  • Todd Landman (2005), “The Political Science of Human Rights”, British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 35, No. 3 pp. 549-572.
  • Charles R. Beitz (2009), The Idea of Human Rights, Publisher: OUP. Chapter 2 The Pracice,
  • Jack Donnelly (1984), Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 400-419.
  • J. Roland Pennock (1981), “Rights, Natural Rights and Human Rights- A General View, Nomos,  Vol. 23, pp. 1-28.
  • Donnelly, Jack (2013), Universal Human Rights in Theory & Practice. 3rd ed. Cornell University Press,.
  • Christian Tomuschat (2014), Human Rights: Between Idealism and Realism, (3rd edn, OUP 2014).
  • Micheline R, Ishay (2004), The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Modernization Era, University of California Press.
  • SAHRDC (2006) ‘Introduction to Human Rights’; ‘Classification of Human Rights: An Overview of the First, Second, and Third Generational Rights’, in Introducing Human Rights, New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  • Marshall, T. H., & Bottomore, T. (1992). Citizenship and Social Class. Pluto Press.
  • Adrian Vasile Cornescu (2023), “The Generations of Human’s Rights”, 1 January, 2009. Accessed on: 29 October 2023. URL https://www.law.muni.cz/sborniky/dny_prava_2009/files/prispevky/tvorba_prava/Cornescu_Adrian_Vasile.pdf
  • Maastricht Principles on The Human Rights of Future Generations, ADOPTED ON 3 February 2023, URL: https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/new-york/events/hr75-future-generations/Maastricht-Principles-on-The-Human-Rights-of-Future-Generations.pdf
  • OHCHR, “Key concepts on ESCRs - Are economic, social and cultural rights fundamentally different from civil and political rights?”, https://www.ohchr.org/en/human-rights/economic-social-cultural-rights/escr-vs-civil-political-rights
  • United Nations (1948), “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, URL: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
  • John P. Humphrey (1949), “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, International Journal, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 351-361.
  • Eide, Asbjørn (2001), “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights.” In Mashood Baderin and Robert McCorquodale (eds), Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Action, (OUP 2007).
  • Richard Ashby Wilson (2005), “Human Rights in the War on Terror”, Cambridge University Press.
  • Baljeet Kaur (2014), “India's Silent Acceptance of Torture Has Made It a 'Public Secret', Available at: https://www.epw.in/engage/article/indias-silent-acceptance-torture-has#:~:text=On%20the%20one%20hand%2C%20there,”%20(Jinee%20Lokaneeta%202014).
  • D. O’Byrne (2007), ‘Torture’, in Human Rights: An Introduction, Delhi: Pearson, pp. 164-197.
  • A Onuora-Oguno (2014), “Migration, Refugees, Asylum and Uprooted Peoples' Rights”, in A Mihr and M Gibney, The SAGE Handbook of Human Rights, pp. 253-266.
  • The Constitution of India (as on November 2021), https://lddashboard.legislative.gov.in/sites/default/files/COI...pdf
  • The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, Chapter 2: Bill of Rights. The Constitution of India, Chapter 3: Fundamental Rights
  • Lennox S. Hinds (1985), “Apartheid in South Africa and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, Crime and Social Justice, No. 24, pp. 5-43.
  • Ali, Shaheen Sadar (2016), “CEDAW? What’s That? Domesticating International Women’s Human Rights in Muslim Jurisdictions: Reflections on Pakistan’s Engagement with CEDAW'' In Modern Challenges to Islamic Law, edited by Shaheen Sadar Ali,  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 184–205.
  • Charlotte Bunch (1990), “Women's Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights”,Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4 (Nov., 1990), pp. 486-498.
  • Ali A. Abdi, Lynette Shultz (2008), Educating for Human Rights and Global Citizenship, State University of New York Press, Chapter 7 The Short History of Women, Human Rights, and Global Citizenship.
  • Ahmad N. (2010), “Female feticide in India”,Issues Law Med, 26 (1): 13-29.
  • Charlotte Bunch (1990), “Women's Rights as Human Rights: Toward a Re-Vision of Human Rights”, Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 4, pp. 486-498.
  • A. Khan and R. Hussain, (2008), ‘Violence Against Women in Pakistan: Perceptions and Experiences of Domestic Violence’, Asian Studies Review, Vol. 32, pp. 239 – 253
  • Michelle T. Hackett (2011), “Domestic Violence against Women: Statistical Analysis of Crimes across India”, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 267-288.
  • Kathmandu Post (2021), “Despite laws in place, justice still out of reach for Dalits in Nepal”, available at: https://kathmandupost.com/national/2021/10/19/despite-laws-in-place-justice-still-out-of-reach-for-dalits-in-nepal
  • Harrison Akins (2019), “Policy Update: Pakistan’s Blasphemy Law”, available at: https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2019%20Pakistan%20Blasphemy.pdf
  • Svoboda JS. (2013), “Circumcision of male infants as a human rights violation”, Journal of Med Ethics, 39 (7): 469-74.
  • Additional Readings
  • Banister, J., & Johnson, J. C. (1993). After the killing fields: Lessons from the Cambodian genocide. Texas Tech University Press.
  • Ghose, A. K. (1982). The anatomy of famine. Oxford University Press.
  • Slim, R. (2019). Civil Wars: What We Don't Know. Harvard University Press.
  • Brass, P. R. (1978). The Politics of India since Independence. Cambridge University Press.
  • Sen, A. (1983). Poverty and famines: An essay on entitlement and deprivation. World Development, 11(9), 757-759.
  • Leibold, J. (2013). Ethnic policy in China: Is reform inevitable?. The China Quarterly, 213, 359-388.
  • Gladney, D. C. (2004). Dislocating China: Muslims, minorities, and other subaltern subjects. University of Chicago Press.

Pedagogy:

  1. Instructional design: Classroom lectures, documentaries, movies, site visits, invited lectures, and student project presentations.
  2. Special needs (facilities, requirements in terms of software, studio, lab, clinic, library, classroom/others instructional space; any other – please specify): Classroom with AV equipment, and high speed wi-fi
  3. Expertise in AUD faculty or outside: AUD and external experts.
  4. Linkages with external agencies (e.g., with national human rights commission, field-based organisations like UNHCR; any others):

Assessment structure (modes and frequency of assessments)

  • Class Assessment (20%)
  • Book Review: 20%
  1.  
  • Project (20%): multimedia project with presentation and reflective note on a topic/theme decided collectively
  • Final examination (40%): essay-based final exam.
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