BHR301 | Human Rights Law

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Human rights have occupied a predominant place both at international and domestic legal systems not just as a discipline of law and polity but as the epitome of justice. It normatively began with the Declaration by the United Nations about 75 years ago to become a universal normative system of global governance. Its realization confounds governments, societies and individuals equally. The course focuses mainly on the United Nations system of human rights as this is arguably the most ‘universal’ in its application and has evolved into a global grammar of governance. The regime, however, systematizes the hierarchy of human rights placing civil and political rights at a higher pedestal than social, economic and cultural rights. This course aims to familiarize and enable students to critically engage with the design and structure of the international human rights system, its implications for India and the Global South, and to think about the potentialities of the human rights discourse to address the challenges of the present.

The course aims to critically understand the theoretical foundation of human rights discourse, its implications as a system of global governance, and the challenges it faces today. Hence, the initial part of the course discusses the history, theoretical foundations, critiques of and hierarchy of HR, followed by the discussion on evolution of human rights within the UN system. The course highlights the importance of the human rights movements that shaped and inspired the contemporary human rights law. Human rights often meets the contestation of state sovereignty requiring accountability from the states in terms of implementation and domestication. The course outlines the supposed need for monitoring mechanisms by the international/national institutions, implementation/domestication and the role played by the human rights defenders. Delving into the human rights violation of the vulnerable groups in the next module, the course explores intersectionality as a theory and methodology to empower the marginalized. It also critically evaluates the over- emphasis of identity to an intersectional human rights analysis. Finally, the course captures the interface between the human rights law with contemporary challenges such as climate change, refugee and migrant situations, war and conflicts, pandemic and technology.