CSOC-416 & CSOC-516-01 Human Rights and Wrongs

Social Justice and Media in Global Perspective

This course explores one of the most important issues of our time – human rights. We will study the theory and practice of human rights and wrongs by examining key debates that have animated the field. In today’s digital and networked world it is hard to escape the political power of the moving images which often bring many of these human rights issues to life on our screens, in our homes. The course reflects the globalized context in which any debate regarding human rights must take place and is thus organized thematically. In Section One, we will begin with some historical accounts and an examination of the post- world war II, context in which the contemporary human rights framework was established. What are human rights and for whom? Can and do states protect citizens’ human rights? Section Two, will cover the debates about the universality of rights. How is the notion of human rights embedded in Social, and Economic structures of inequality? Are they inalienable? How does the discourse of human rights create victims and saviors? In Section three, we will deal with post 9/11, war on terror and torture and its world wide impact on human rights and wrongs. In Section Four we consider the lived experiences of people facing genocide, ethnic cleansing and human rights violations. How do people heal the personal and political wounds of wars and how do they make their stories known? In this section, we also take up the search for justice. What is the relation between justice, human rights and truth? We examine the work of criminal tribunals, the International Criminal Court and truth and reconciliation commissions. When should the international community intervene in sovereign nations’ treatment of their own citizens? In the concluding section, we examine the take home questions: What are the potentials and the limitations of human rights as an international regime? Besides using academic writings, the course will also explore human rights through the works of various groups that try to intervene in the crisis: journalists, photographers, filmmakers, human rights activists, scholars, artists, and others who try to bring international attention to the situation and help mitigate the violence. The course will culminate in a collective project that brings together scholarship, art and activism.

Required Readings:

1. Peter Joseph, 2017, The New Human Rights Movement: Reinventing the Economy to End Oppression, Benbella Books.

2. Clapham, Andrew 2017. Looking at Rights, in Human Rights, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

3. Pogge, Thomas, World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002.

4. Brown, Gordon, et al. 2016. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the 21st Century: A Living Document in a Changing World. NY: NYU Global Institute for Advanced Study. (109pp) (SKIM!) http://www.openbookpublishers.com/reader/467

Objectives

1. To understand human rights more broadly, and how they operate in the world.

2. To be able to have a “critical eye” when watching documentaries, and other visual arts, photographs music and personal accounts, etc. and to be able to identify aspects of visual art that can be used to create powerful statements/emotions about human right abuse. 


Outcomes

By the end of the semester students will:

1. Have a solid overview of many of the major contemporary human rights and social justice issues.

2. Understand a number of different methodologies and theoretical perspectives that are employed to study human rights issues.

3. Develop an understanding of the roles played by international courts, the United Nations, and others in the advancement of global human rights and justice. .

4. Better understand the limitations of human rights law frameworks for advancing social justice especially among marginalized populations.

5. Have a general understanding of debates about rights-based development.

6. Have an understanding of the important role played by the Millennium Development Goals in framing economic development debates.