ATS4810 - Global justice: Civil and human rights after 1945 - 2018

The unit explores civil and human rights campaigns from interdisciplinary perspectives, focusing on historical and philosophical approaches. It examines the global contexts and outcomes of major campaigns, and the ways in which these drew from and contributed to an emerging international rights framework from the twentieth century onwards. The unit also prompts students to critique the human rights framework with reference to issues of global injustice. It will use historical and philosophical approaches to examine whether human rights are the best ethical and political framework to underpin responses to injustice and inequality, and to engage with how alternative responses have been articulated.

Students successfully completing the unit will be able to:

1. appraise and explain the key intellectual and political debates about the nature of justice, civil rights and human rights on a global scale, as well as the relationship between universal notions of justice and rights and arguments about difference and diversity;
2. identify and apply two major disciplinary approaches to studying human rights in global context, and combine these approaches in their own analysis of major topics and questions in human rights;
3. critically read a variety of texts, including contemporary documents, polemical literature and campaign material, the academic scholarship based upon those texts and the theoretical and conceptual debates about justice and rights;
4. critically assess academic scholarship, including methods, assumptions and uses of evidence, and organise and defend a verbal and written argument based upon those assessments;
5. devise, plan and successfully complete a detailed case study, including significant documentary research, that evaluates the significance and effectiveness of a particular campaign, organisation or issue.

Within semester assessment: 80% + Exam: 20%

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 288 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A 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.

See also Unit timetable information

History

International studies