Students attending Master's courses will be able to participate on a library course. At the course you will learn how to do searches in both national and international databases, and you will have the opportunity to search the articles that is on your curriculum.The course is voluntary, but we strongly recommend that students attend. More information to come.
Background materials that are to be browsed in advance of the first lecture Monday 2 March
“The International Bill of Human Rights”, comprising Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (1966/1976), and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966/1976). These documents are available from University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
Participants should have access to: The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action (1993) Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at and Charter of the United Nations (1945) from University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
Handouts and other supplementary readings will be made available as the course proceeds. Also, a detailed teaching plan will be presented Monday 2 March. Additional handouts and supplementary readings will be posted in Fronter.
At the first course lecture Monday 2 March handouts will be available of relevant background information, in particular: excerpts from “Setting International Standards in the Field of Human Rights” (GAR 41/120, 4. Dec. 1986), “Statute of the International Court of Justice” (1945) and “Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties” (1969).
Beyond the above-mentioned documents course participants who do not have any background in International Human Rights are advised to consult Thomas Buergenthal et al., International Human Rights in a Nutshell, 4th Ed., St Paul, MN: West Publishing Company, 2009; ISBN978-0-314-18480-1 (Recommendation: start by reading chapters 1 through 3; do not get bogged down by the many references to other literature and to case materials.)
Course participants may alternatively read Dina Shelton, “An Introduction to the History of International Human Rights Law”.
Required reading
Seyla Benhabib, “Is there a Human Right to Democracy?”,at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1899956 20 pages
David P. Forsythe, “The United States and International Criminal Justice”, Human Rights Quarterly, 24 (4), 2002:974-991; 17 pages Link
David P. Forsythe: Human Rights in International Relations, 3rd Edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012: 71-114, 117-152; 78 pages
Mary Ann Glendon: A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, New York: Random House, 2001: 99-241; 138 pages
Christoph Heyns, “The Preamble of the United Nations Charter: The Contribution of Jan Smuts”, African Journal of Interantional and comparative Law 7(2), 1995:329-348 20 pages
Martti Koskenniemi, “International Law and Hegemony: A Reconfiguration”, Cambridge Review of International Affairs 17, 2004:197- 218, 20 pages Link
Samuel Moyn, “Why is dignity in the Charter of the Unite Nations?” 2 pages
James W. Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights, Second Edition, Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2007:53-184; 131 pages
James W. Nickel, “What Future for Human Rights?”, Ethics and Interantional Affairs, 28, 2, 2014:213-223, 11 pages
Joseph Raz, “Human Rights in the Emerging World Order”, Transnational Legal Theory, 1, 2010:31-47 16 pages
Joseph Raz, “On Waldron’s Criktique of Raz on Human rights”, Columbia Law School/working paper no 13-359 7 pages
Christian Reus-Smit, “Human rights in the global ecumene”, International Affairs, 87, 5, 2011:1205-1218. 13 pages
Thomas Risse, Ropp, Sikkink eds. The Persistent Power of Human Rights: From Commitment to Compliance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013; 293 pages
Kathryn Sikkink, The Justice Cascade: How Human Rights Prosecutions are Changing World Politics, New York: Norton and Company, 2011: 1-188 and 225-262; 237 pages
Jeremy Waldron, “Human Rights: A Critique of the Raz/Rawls Approach”, 19 pages
Jeremy Waldron, “Dignity, Rank, and Rights”, 46 pages
Total: 1068 pages