BHR301 | Human Rights Law

The world we are situated in is in an unprecedented state of catastrophe. As authoritarian regimes and settler capitalism rise across various horizons, the role of human rights law is increasingly being questioned, both at local and international levels. While the period after the Second World War saw a rise in the recognition of human rights for all people through international instruments and the adoption of human rights principles in various country constitutions, the efficacy of human rights law has become an essential question.

In this course, we aim to go beyond the general discussions around the international legal regime of human rights law to scrutinise a few core questions:

Who is human rights law for?

What is the historical basis for the existence of human rights law? Which power structures determined the substantive content of human rights regime?

Is human rights law ‘real’? Is it enforceable? Is it justiciable?

What are some creative ways in which we can mobilise the law to achieve the end goals of human rights?

While 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, it will draw on examples from various jurisdictions to try and arrive at an understanding of how legal doctrine is manifesting on the ground. 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.