LAWS206

This course offers an overview of the human rights system, looking at its basic elements and studying how it works, with special attention paid to the cross-cultural dimensions of international human rights. European, African, Middle Eastern and Latin-American cultural perspectives are particularly examined in relation to the universality of rights. The course focuses on how the human rights system mediates global standards and local cultures, and on the meanings of human rights at global, regional and domestic levels. The goal of the course is to develop an understanding of human rights as law, meaning and practice. The course is structured in two main parts: a historical, conceptual and institutional overview of the human rights sytem, and regional perspectives of human rights in Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and United States.