Course teached as: B018946 - INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW Second Cycle Degree in INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND EUROPEAN STUDIES Curriculum RELAZIONI INTERNAZIONALI
Teaching Language
English
Course Content
This course offers students a unique opportunity as it combines the theoretical knowledge of the origin and development of human rights law in an international perspective with the experience acquired by the activists working for one of the oldest and most prestigious human rights NGOs: Amnesty International. The course will focus on the protection of the multifaceted right to life.
Students attending the course: The textbook is I. Bantekas e L. Oette, International Human Rights Law and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 2013. The pages of reference and other material will be indicated at the beginning of the course and inserted on the E-Moodle platform of the course.
Students not attending the course: I. Bantekas e L. Oette, International Human Rights Law and Practice, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp. 9-325 and pp. 452-466; and R. McQuigg, What potential does the Council of Europe Convention on Violence against Women hold as regards domestic violence?, in The International Journal of Human Rights, 2012, pp. 947-962. In addition, students have to know the text of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), available at http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/ccpr.pdf
Learning Objectives
Knowledge: to deal with the main universal and regional systems of protection of human rights by examining their control mechanisms, in particular with respect to the right to life as protected within the United Nations and the Council of Europe.
Competence: to familiarise with the main legal issues arising from the universal and regional systems of protection of human rights so as to employ this knowledge within international (governmental or non-governmental) organisations, national ministries, multinational corporations and international tribunals.
Abilities acquired at the end of the course: a) critical analysis of the international rules on human rights in order to devise ways to enhance the implementation of human rights both at the universal and European level; b) critical thinking on the international case-law relative to human rights with special reference to the right to life.
Prerequisites
Students must have completed an introductory course to International Law
Teaching Methods
Lectures, also from Italian and foreign experts, and seminars.
Type of Assessment
Students attending and not attending the course: written exam in English consisting in the answer to 3 out of 4 open questions in one and a half hour of time.
Course program
The FIRST PART of the course, after a short introduction on the moral and legal foundations of human rights, will focus on the protection of human rights at the universal level. Fist of all, the main human rights treaties will be examined, with special reference to the two 1966 Covenants. Secondly, the mechanisms of the implementation of some treaties and the functioning of the recently established UN Human Rights Council will be analysed with a view to highlight the intricate web of control devices existing in the international human rights field.
The SECOND PART of the course will be conducted in a seminar format with students’ presentations and the intervention of the representatives of Amnesty International. This part will be devoted to the analysis of a specific right, i.e. the right to life, with special emphasis on the death penalty, as well as the legal discipline of the protection of women against domestic violence and the right to a healthy environment. To this end, students will be required to make presentations on a judgment or a report of an international judicial or control body such as the Human Rights Committee.