Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: In Class

This course introduces the international human rights system, with particular emphasis on its relationship with the United States, including human rights within the United States and U.S. action either promoting or infringing human rights in other countries. It will examine global and regional human rights institutions and illustrate their scrutiny of U.S. practices. It will compare the international conceptions of civil, political, social, and economic rights, as well as antidiscrimination, with U.S. rights doctrines and investigate how each may provide a critique of the other. The course will also consider human rights responses to current challenges such as climate change.

No prior study of international law is required — the course will describe the background rules that structure international human rights law.