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Professor Susan Marks

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Development Studies, MSc in Human Rights and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course is part of the following LLM specialisms: Public International Law, Human Rights Law.

This course has a limited number of places and we cannot guarantee all students will get a place.

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The course provides an introduction to key developments, issues and ideas that have given shape to the regime of international human rights law. We consider enduring debates around the foundations and universality of human rights, and look at a range of controversies relating to the interpretation and application of human rights treaties. Through the study of relevant concepts, norms, processes and debates, students are encouraged to develop an informed and critical assessment of the significance of international human rights law as a force for emancipatory change.

This course will have two hours of teaching content each week in Michaelmas Term, either in the form of a two hour seminar or an online lecture and one hour class. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Michaelmas Term.

Students are expected to have done the set reading and be willing to participate in discussion.

Class exercises will be set.

Reading lists will be provided for each seminar on Moodle. Relevant readings may include: Charles Beitz, The Idea of Human Rights (2009); Conor Gearty and Costas Douzinas (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Human Rights Law (2012); and Philip Alston and Frédéric Mégret, The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal (2017).

Assessment will be based on submission of an 8,000 word essay.

Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.