Human Rights – (M.Sc.)

Contents

The compulsory multidisciplinary human rights course provides students with an overview of the philosophical, sociological and legal approaches to this subject. The course gets students thinking about the foundations, concepts and ideals of human rights, while taking a critical view of them as an academic subject and area of practice. The course serves as an introduction to the core standards and structures of human rights and discusses a range of key issues in the current, ongoing debates about the role of human rights. While these may change from year to year, thematic issues that the core course covers include: democracy, genocide, globalisation, humanitarian intervention, migration, minority rights, right to life, terrorism and human rights, transitional justice, and world poverty. The course provides a strong intellectual underpinning for your multidisciplinary study of human rights, which will be built on in your optional choice of courses and dissertation.

Dr Alasdair Cochrane (philosophy), Professor Conor Gearty (domestic law), Dr Claire Moon (sociology) and Dr Margot Salomon (international law) are the central course lecturers. LSE staff who are members of the Centre's Advisory Board are also working actively on research and policy projects in human rights and closely related areas and bring a rich array of expertise to the Centre and our students. A selection of topics that staff research are: animal rights, climate change and human rights, conflict resolution, criminal justice policy, democratisation development, ethical foreign policy, ethnic nationalism, genocide, globalisation and global government, hate speech and freedom of expression, media and public reactions to atrocities, minority and indigenous rights, policing, refugee and asylum studies, religious rights, terrorism, transitional justice, torture, women's human rights and world poverty.

In addition to the core course and optional courses, students write a 10,000 word dissertation, assessed as the equivalent of a whole course. You can choose any subject that interests you under the broad human rights rubric, and you may take either an interdisciplinary approach or one that is more sociological, legal or philosophical, using original research or secondary sources. After consultation with your assigned supervisor, your topic is approved at the end of the second term. You will normally get started in the spring, but do most of the work in the summer months before the dissertation is submitted in August 2012.

We encourage students to deal with key issues through the lens of a particular case study, social problem or body of law, such as (to pick a selection from past years): reporting and representing genocide and mass-atrocities – human rights, objectivity and bystander apathy; the changes in American foreign policy in the Middle East after September 11; international financial institutions in sub-Saharan Africa; Japanese social structure and women's human rights; public protest and the freedom of political expression in the UK; the human rights role of the UN Security Council; transitional justice, child soldiers and African conflicts.

Compulsory courses

* Approaches to Human Rights
* Dissertation

Options

(* half unit)

Choose two or more optional courses (to the value of two units) from a wide range offered by the LSE departments and institutes associated with the Centre for the Study of Human Rights.

Options vary from year to year, but will normally include:

Department of Anthropology

* Anthropology of Development*
* Law in Society: A Joint Course in Anthropology and Law
* Anthropology and Human Rights*
* Anthropology of Politics
* Anthropology of Economy (1): Production and Exchange*
* Anthropology of Economy (2): Transformation and Globalisation*

Department of International Development

* Population and Development: An Analytic Approach*
* African Development*
* Complex Emergencies*
* HIV/AIDS and Other Emerging Health Threats*
* Managing Humanitarianism*
* Global Civil Society I*
* Global Civil Society II*

European Institute

* Ethnic Diversity and International Society*
* Identity, Community and the Problem of Minorities*
* Minorities and Migration in Europe*

Department of Government

* National and Ethnic Conflict Regulation*
* Globalisation and Democracy*
* The State and Political Institutions in Latin America*
* War, Peace and the Politics of National Self-Determination*
* The Liberal Idea of Freedom*
* Dilemmas of Equality*
* Contemporary Disputes about Justice*

Department of International Relations

* Conflict and Peace Studies
* Introduction to International Political Theory*
* The International Political Theory of Humanitarian Intervention*
* The Politics of International Law*
* The International Politics of Culture and Religion

Department of Law

* Human Rights in the Developing World
* International Criminal Law
* The International Law of Armed Conflict and the Use of Force
* International Human Rights
* Human Rights Law: The European Convention of Human Rights*
* Human Rights Law: The Human Rights Act*
* Human Rights Law in the UK
* Human Rights of Women
* International Law and the Protection of Refugees, Displaced Persons and Migrants
* World Poverty and Human Rights*
* The International Law of Self-Determination*
* International Dispute Resolution: Courts and Tribunals*
* The International Law of Self-Determination*
* Law and the Holocaust*
* Theory of Human Rights Law*
* Climate Change: Ethics, Development and International Law*

Department of Social Policy

* Child Rights, Child Poverty and Development
* Social Rights and Human Welfare*
* International Planning and Children's Rights*
* International Social Policy and Children's Needs*
* NGOs and Development

Department of Sociology

* Political Reconciliation
* Racial Formations of Modernity
* Topics in Race, Ethnicity and Postcolonial Studies
* Race, Ethnicity and Migration in Britain (post 1945)*
* Race and Biopolitics*
* Ethnic and Religious Violence in Post-Colonial Societies*

Registration for these options depends on availability, regulations and conditions of the host department. Further restrictions apply to the Law Department options that are part of the LLM degree.