Postgraduate Course: Political Theory of International Human Rights (PGSP11161)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This is a course for political theory students and addresses contemporary issues and debates relating to human rights. It includes debates about: philosophical questions concerning what human rights are; the normative difference between social/economic and civil/political rights, relating these to ideas of 'positive' vs 'negative' rights; whether and how severe poverty is a matter of human rights violation; whether human rights support or conflict with goals of democracy, domestically and internationally; whether/when human rights concerns can legitimate intervention, even military, in other states' affairs; whether human rights principles are consistent with, or a challenge to, the principle of state sovereignty; whether human rights can or should be used to the ends of environmental protection; whether human rights are culturally relative or genuinely universal. |
| Course description |
Not entered
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand the competing philosophical arguments about the nature and conditions of existence of human rights
- Assess the relationship between legal and moral framings of human rights and the different categories of human rights (e.g. social, economic, civil, political)
- Assess the arguments for and against cultural relativist critiques of human rights as universal
- Assess the role of human rights in cases such as environmental protection and humanitarian intervention
- Assess the competing claims of human rights and the principles of state sovereignty and democracy
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Reading List
Beetham, D (ed) (1995) Politics and Human Rights (Political Studies special issue) Blackwell
Boyle, A and Anderson, M (1996) Human Rights Approaches to Environmental Protection, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Caney, S & Jones, P (eds) (2001) Human Rights and Global Diversity, F. Cass.
Davidson, S (1993) Human Rights, Open University Press.
Donnelly, J (1998) International Human Rights, 2nd edn., Westview, Boulder Colorado.
Donnelly, J (1989) Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice. Cornell UP.
Dunne, T & Wheeler, N (eds) (1999) Human Rights in Global Politics Cambridge UP
Evans, T (ed) (1998) Human Rights Fifty Years On: a reappraisal, Manchester UP.
Hayden, P (2001) The Philosophy of Human Rights, Paragon House.
Hayward, T (2005) Constitutional Environmental Rights, Oxford University Press.
Jones, P (1994) Rights, Macmillan.
Martin, R (1993) A System of Rights, Clarendon Press, Oxford [online OSO]
Morsink, J (1999) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: origins, drafting and intent, University of Pennsylvania Press.
Nickel, J (1987) Making Sense of Human Rights, Univ of California Press. Scanned
text available online from http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~jnickel/
Orend, B (2002) Human Rights: Concept and Context, Broadview Press.
Pogge, T (2007) World Poverty and Human Rights, 2nd edn, Polity Press.
Raphael, DD (ed) (1967) Political Theory and the Rights of Man, Indiana UP.
Rawls, J (1999) The Law of Peoples, Harvard UP.
Renteln, A (1990) International Human Rights: universalism versus relativism. Sage
Shue, H (1980) Basic rights : subsistence, affluence, and U.S. foreign policy. Princeton University Press. (Also a 2nd edition, 1996)
Vincent, R (1986) Human Rights and International Relations. Cambridge UP |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Additional Class Delivery Information |
In 2011 it is expected to run this course as a guided reading course: students meet weekly for two-hour self-led discussion of the week's set texts. |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Philip Cook
Tel: (0131 6)51 1577
Email: Philip.Cook@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Gillian Macdonald
Tel: (0131 6)51 3244
Email: gillian.macdonald@ed.ac.uk |
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