Human Rights, Globalisation and Justice – (M.A.)

Contents

The course is open to all graduates with a first or second-class honours degree. International students whose first language is not English must have IELTS 6.5 or equivalent.

The course involves both a taught and a research component. The teaching occurs in four three-day modules, between September and April. This structure has proved very successful at Keele in other postgraduate contexts, and particularly benefits part-time students who appreciate ‘time out’ in an accessible academic environment but within the attractive Staffordshire countryside.

The MA requires 180 credits, made up of four 30-credit modules (120 credits) and a 60-credit dissertation. The award may be achieved either full-time or through a more flexible part-time programme. If taken full-time, the course can be completed within one year, with submission of the Masters dissertation by the end of September. Students taking the course part-time may complete the four taught modules in year one, with submission of the dissertation by September a year later, completing the whole programme in 2 years. Some students may not wish to complete the whole course but may be interested in taking just one or two modules. If this is the case, you should contact the Course Director.

Course Modules

The four modules are outlined below, with illustrations of course content:

Foundations of Human Rights – This broad foundation module provides a background in which to situate our study and critique of human rights theory and practice. This module explores historical, philosophical, structural aspects of human rights, including institutions involved in human rights and contemporary issues of human rights. It also aims to introduce students to differing understandings of legal, political and philosophical inquiry, and initiates them into the skills required for postgraduate research.

Equality, Discrimination, Minorities – This module provides an outline of conceptual and institutional efforts regarding ethics, equality, non-discrimination and vulnerable communities. Using the thematics of race, ethnicity, ‘indigeneity and caste/descent, the module examines and critiques particular inequalities in international human rights policy and practice such as geographical and governance inequalities, exploring equality issues through particular case studies.

Human Rights in a Global Market – This module explores how economic globalisation affects the nature of human rights policy and practice. The module considers the position of human rights in the global market and the impact on social, cultural and gender relations. The module also addresses roles of different actors in the global and local human rights fields, (e.g. NGOs/social movements, multinational and local business corporations, international financial institutions, etc.) and their impacts and opportunities for interaction in international structures concerned with the promotion and protection of human rights.

Human Rights and Global Politics – This module further develops the connections between global and local causes and responses to contemporary human rights issues. The overall focus of the module is on exploring evolving political and legal strategies to advance human rights in a global political framework. The module has a particular focus on developing an understanding of political violence and terror to assess and address causes of human rights violations. This will include comparative analysis of the use of terror by states against their own citizens and how this can be understood and explained.