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Challenges and Opportunities of Human Rights (STG-MA-ECM-CHR)

STG-MA-ECM-CHR

Description

Human rights represent a form of transnational governance at a critical point. Developed after the second world war, and in response to the atrocities committed, human rights approaches to governance are now facing a twin challenge. On the one hand, populist and increasingly authoritarian governments are pushing to limit the protections both their own citizens, and others, receive through human rights. On the other hand, human rights have been criticized for being an example of normative imperialism, which have been inadequate in bringing about real change. The purpose of this course is to examine these tensions and to assess, in a transnational perspective, the challenges and opportunities of human rights by focusing in one of the areas that is being most heavily contested, namely women´s and sexual orientation /gender identity rights. The course builds upon the Decentering discussion in first year, as well as the Law of Transnational Governance course, to give an in-depth understanding of this form of transnational governance. It contains a skills training component, focused on inclusive leadership, which should help students get familiarized with how inclusive democracies can be furthered not only in theory but in practice and in all possible contexts.
 
This course explores the potential and relevance of human rights norms in view of contemporary theoretical debates around the challenges and opportunities of human rights. The course opens with a general discussion of the arguments presented by human rights defenders and human rights critiques as to their overall relevance as instruments of good governance in the contemporary world order. NYU Professors, Philip Alston, many times UN Special Rapporteur will join us in this debate (https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.overview&personid=19742).
The course then moves to exemplify some of the tensions, challenges, and opportunities of human rights as governance instruments by zooming into the ongoing debates and experiences around women’s and SOGI rights. Women’s and SOGI rights represent a useful topic to consider in giving insight into the tensions around human rights precisely because although much progress was made in the decades following the development of transnational human rights approaches, the current debates show that women’s and SOGI rights are struggling to mediate between a series of competing perspectives. Prof. Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, former EUI researcher, and currently Chair of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls will join us to share with us an insider´s view about the potential and limits of the work of the Working Group as well as about some of the most controversial issues in the gender agenda the WG has been engaging with.  

The final part then takes these issues and considers how to turn them into our own practice and daily work by reflecting about the skills involved in inclusive leadership as an instrument of fair and effective governance. 


 

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