JLST 402
Senior Seminar in Human Rights in International Politics and Law Fall 2014
Division II Writing Skills
Cross-listed PSCI 420
This is not the current course catalog

The idea that all humans have rights simply because they are human-independent of anything they might do or achieve-has transformed local and international politics, probably permanently. This concept’s place in international politics, its strengths and limitations, depend on how people use it. Beginning with the 18th-century’s transatlantic movement to abolish slavery, we will examine international movements and institutions that have affected what human rights mean, to whom, and where. Readings draw on philosophy, history, sociology, and international relations, but as a political science class we emphasize politics. Who benefits from the idea of universal human rights? Who loses? How does this idea about individual value liberate and entrap? Does this idea ultimately reinforce American hegemony, or plant the seeds of a non-American order?