Handbook

This course provides a critical introduction to the history, philosophical foundations, legal structure and political operation of international human rights law. Human rights discourses are today the predominant legal, moral and political instruments for defining and defending justice. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War marked the alleged historical triumph of human rights as the ultimate legal language of moral outrage and political compassion in face of injustice and oppression. ¿Human rights¿, however, is not a static concept: it binds law, morality, politics and culture in a chain of mutual cross-references that do not simply coexist, but actually collide and compete in several ways. Human rights hence emerge as an inherently dynamic and political body of law. The course accordingly conducts an examination of the principles and institutions of international human rights law with a particular focus on their historical origins and development. By combining jurisprudential, historical and critical approaches to the study of international human rights law, the course aims to offer students a rounded account of the theoretical fundamentals of human rights while emphasizing some of the current perplexities and controversies that characterize human rights work.