Undergraduate - UnitLAW4155 - International human rights

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 3, 0.125 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Law
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Day)

Synopsis

This unit is a general introduction to international human rights law. It is concerned with human rights standards as they exist in international law and the international mechanisms for enforcing these standards. The unit will consider a selection of specific human rights, limitations to human rights (e.g. derogation in time of emergency) and some major contemporary international human rights issues.

Outcomes

Upon completion of this unit students should be able to:

understand and analyse international human rights standards and evaluate mechanisms designed to enforce human rights at the international/regional level;
explain and critically discuss the content of various human rights, such content being identified, inter alia, by reference to the case law of the UN treaty monitoring committees and regional human rights courts;
understand and critically evaluate some of the philosophical bases of and problems with international human rights law in light of contemporary human rights issues
communicate effectively within an international legal setting
conduct self-directed legal research

Assessment

Group exercise: 10% and
Research paper (1500 words) 30% and
Examination (2 hours writing time plus 30 minutes reading and noting time) 60%
OR
Group exercise 10% and
Examination which includes a 20% research component (2 hours writing time plus 30 minutes reading and noting time): 90%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 144 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. The unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Sarah Joseph

Prerequisites

For students who commenced their LLB (Hons) course in 2015 or later:
LAW1111; LAW1114; LAW1112; LAW1113; LAW2101; LAW2102; LAW2112; LAW2111

For students who commenced their LLB course prior to 2015: LAW1100 OR LAW1101 and LAW1102 or LAW1104