Required Clinic Component: International Human Rights Clinic (3-5 spring clinical credits). Students enrolled in the spring clinic must enroll in this seminar or the spring Human Rights Advocacy seminar. Students are not guaranteed their first choice of clinical seminars. Clinical seminar selection and enrollment occurs once a student has enrolled in the spring clinic and is orchestrated by the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs.
Additional Co-/Pre-Requisites: None.
By Permission: No.
Add/Drop Deadline: December 2, 2022.
LLM Students: LLM students may apply to the clinic through the LLM General Clinic Application.

This seminar will introduce students to practical and legal questions at the intersection of international human rights law and human rights advocacy in the Middle East and North Africa, taking a contextualized historical, comparative, and critical approach.

Using selected case studies across different countries and themes, the seminar will introduce students to a range of contemporary human rights issues, frameworks, and strategies that human rights advocates employ in their struggle for rights protection and accountability. We will examine debates and controversies around the application of international human rights law in the Middle East and North Africa and the different sociopolitical and historical factors informing the human rights discourse in the region.

We will also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of different human rights advocacy strategies, choices of discourse and language, approaches to mobilization and coalition building, dynamics between international human rights movements and local communities and activists, as well as critiques and limitations to the human rights discourse.

Students will be graded on their participation in class discussions, a number of short assignments, and a class presentation.