Human Rights Reparations: Design and Compliance

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The course will explore the current state of reparations for human rights violations, as prescribed by international courts, tribunals, commissions, and other adjudication bodies. We will develop two disciplinary perspectives and integrate them in a collective research project. The first perspective will examine, from a legal standpoint, the sufficiency and adequacy of reparation measures light of international human rights law and the general law of international responsibility, and will inquire into the political and civil society challenges resulting in unmet reparations for complex human rights violations, such as slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade, climate change impacts, refugees and displacements from migration, genocide and mass atrocities during conflicts. The second perspective will explore the political conditions under which governmental actors comply with human rights reparations, and what non-governmental actors can do to promote compliance.