International Law and Human Rights

3 units

This course takes a critical perspective of international law and human rights, by examining the foundational codes and conventions, and asking how relevant they are today in light of a changing society. It will consider how paradigms have shifted regarding who is deserving of human rights, as well as the problems of enforcement when state governments are themselves perpetrators of human rights violations. Readings, films, and interactive data sets will focus on human rights as embedded in intersectionalities of class, caste, race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and disability. Topics will include issues like: How was Facebook implicated in the genocide of Rohingya in Burma? Why has the Chinese government confined millions of ethnic minority Uighurs in concentration camps? What are food deserts and food apartheid? Have transnational agribusinesses solved world hunger, or have their pesticides and genetically-modified seeds compromised the global ecosystem? Why is the legal system making so little progress on labor and sex trafficking?