, social and cultural (ESC) rights but these are viewed within a wider context, particularly of poverty and development, at both the global and local levels. There have been significant advances in enforcing ESC rights at the international level, where individual complaints are now possible, and at the national level, especially in some parts of the Global South, often drawing on international human rights law. The course situates itself at the cutting edge of the academic debate and global practice in this fast-moving area. After an introduction to the wider context and the current debates on ESC rights, the first part of the course examines the nature and scope of states’ obligations under the key international instruments. The second part focuses on specific ESC rights – health, housing, water, food, education and work – and the challenges that each right presents. In the third part, we will specifically consider enforcement and compliance at the international and domestic levels, and strategies and approaches that are likely to maximise positive impact.
The aim of the course is to provide participants with a broad overview of the major concepts, instruments and mechanisms developed by the international community to address various questions of identity, and the challenges and tensions that arise from this. Upon successful completion of the course, the student should have the ability to conceptualise key questions relating to identity, analyse and interpret leading texts in this area, and understand the potential contribution of normative regulation to the management of these issues.
This course explores the main concepts, laws, institutions, and policies at the intersection of international human rights law and environmental protection. The course will: provide an overview of the conceptual architecture of international environmental law; explore the effects of environmental harm on the enjoyment of human rights, and the developing obligations of States under human rights law to protect against such harm; and consider the application of human rights law in more detail to two global environmental threats: the loss of biodiversity and climate change. Overall, the course is intended to provide participants with a framework for understanding and applying human rights law to environmental challenges.
This course examines the law that governs the conduct of participants in an armed conflict. The course addresses the distinction between the law applicable to international armed conflicts and that applicable to non-international armed conflicts. We also consider the extent to which transnational violence between States and non-State groups should be considered an armed conflict to which international humanitarian law applies. We will explore both the law relating to the humanitarian protection of victims of war (so called “Geneva law”) and the law relating to the means and methods of warfare (“Hague Law”). In particular, we will examine the law relating to the detention, prosecution and treatment of combatants, civilians and unprivileged belligerents (or ‘unlawful combatants’) in time of armed conflict. We then turn to the law that applies to the conduct of hostilities, examining in particular the rules relating to targeting and weaponry. The course also considers the extent to which international human rights law applies in time of armed conflict. In this part of the course we examine the extraterritorial application of human rights obligations and the relationship between human rights and international humanitarian law.
This seminar will explore the nature and extent of the right to life, often described as the supreme or foundational right, highlighting the breath of issues included in or derived from the right to life. Participants will be first introduced to the right to life normative framework and its evolution over time, from State sponsored killings, to State responsibility for killings in the private sphere and the notion of a dignified life. The seminar will focus on some of the right to life key normative foundations, including investigations, prevention, accountability and remedies, and on two key issues that have defined the right to life over time, namely police use of force and death penalty. Finally, we shall analyse some of the cutting edge issues in the field, including those arising from the use of drones and from killings by armed groups, and discuss some groups’ specific risks to arbitrary killings, including human rights defenders and migrants. In order to make the subject matter more concrete, a number of case studies and courts decisions are included.
This seminar analyses three interlinked areas of human rights.  Sessions on minority rights address their historical development, negation and affirmation, conceptualisations of ‘minority’, rights to culture, education and language, and participation in decision-making. Discussions of indigenous rights cover standards at global and regional levels, self-determination, free prior and informed consent, land rights, the impact of mega-projects and resource exploitation on territories and cultures. Exegesis of standards is undertaken in a critical perspective, in light of debates on the standing of ‘differentiated’ and ‘undifferentiated’ rights, and individual and collective rights, in the corpus of international human rights law. Students will also gain an overview of the current institutional fora – regional and global – in which claimants seek redress for violations of these rights and how these institutions are shaping norms.
This course examines the relationship between refugee law and international human rights law generally and provides participants with a framework for their work involving refugees and asylum-seekers. The course has several objectives: to examine the origins and evolution of refugee law and the refugee ‘regime’ during the past and current centuries; to understand who is and who is not protected by international, regional and domestic refugee law; to assess the scope and limits of the refugee’s rights; to investigate various legal and policy impediments to asylum-seeking and some key topical challenges; and to explore international and regional approaches to the protection of these involuntary migrants.
The seminar examines an aspect of the implementation and development of human rights law, namely the role of regional human rights systems in the protection of human rights. The course covers the normative instruments, institutions, procedures and some of the jurisprudence of the African, Inter-American and European regional systems, drawing comparisons between the three systems. Recent regional human rights initiatives in respect of Asia and the Arabic-speaking countries are also referred to.
This seminar explores the synergy and interdependence of religion and human rights, while examining possibilities of mediation of the tensions between these two normative systems. Since experiences of both religion and human rights are specific and contextual, the seminar will focus on the relationship of present Islamic traditions (in the plural) and human rights. That emphasis will also be discussed in light of current realities of post-colonial and neocolonial geopolitical and cultural relations. The emphasis on synergy and mediation of Islam and human rights will be highlighted in discussions of the role of the agency of human subjects in the articulation and protection of their own human rights.
The emergence of societies from mass violence or political repression raises crucial questions about achieving justice and accountability for the human rights abuses of the past. The course will interrogate the questions of how and why, in the wake of grave human rights abuses, individuals and societies attempt to make these violations “visible,” create modes of collectively understanding the events, and manage the inherent tensions in this process of legal, social and moral reconstruction. The course will examine the roles and culpability of bystanders, perpetrators, and civilian and military commanders, as well as the issue of collective responsibility. In addition, the course will address the evolving legal standards, such as the legality of amnesties, the right to redress, and the duty to prosecute. We will examine the claims and methodologies of the central strategies which have developed to engage with the past, including truth-seeking mechanisms, criminal accountability, reparations and apology, and institutional reform.
This seminar addresses issues of gender with a specific focus on the international human rights of women. The general objective of this seminar is to introduce you to approaches and concepts that will enhance your ability to explore strategies and opportunities for protecting women’s rights at the national and international level. It will explore conceptual writings by important theorists as well as deal with the actual standards and their application in particular fact situations. The course has twelve sessions and is divided into four sections. The first section explores the theoretical assumptions that underpin women’s international human rights. It will focus on feminist theories of international law and challenges thereto and explore the concept of equality and its different manifestations. It also seeks to explore the gender dimensions of rights violations particularly as they relate to issues around sexual orientation. The second section will look at CEDAW, the role of the CEDAW Committee, and the Optional Protocol to CEDAW. Reservations to CEDAW, considered by many to evidence lack of commitment on the part of states to upholding the human rights of women are considered. The final section will concentrate on issues relating to violence against women and sexual minorities, intersectionality as well as participation and reproductive rights.
You will write a dissertation not more than 12,000 words. Most of the research and writing for the dissertation you will do from home, using the extensive on-line resources of the University’s Bodleian Libraries. The fifth week of your first Oxford residential session is dedicated to a helping you develop your plans. You will have multiple tutorials with your tutors, develop your online and library-based research skills, use the libraries and begin to develop your outline. The dissertation is submitted the following April before returning for the second residential session.Dr. Andrew Nichols was chosen to give the keynote address at Marshall University Winter Commencement this past December. Nichols, 37, of Point Pleasant, W.Va., arrived at Marshall in 2007 to serve as a professor of civil engineering.
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Dr. Andrew Nichols, a professor of civil engineering at Marshall University, has been named one of the five finalists for the West Virginia Professor of the Year award.
The Faculty Merit Foundation of West Virginia will announce the winner in early March, according to Marshall’s provost, Dr. Gayle Ormiston.
Nichols, a native of Point Pleasant, came to Marshall in 2007 as an assistant professor to teach and conduct applied research in the area of transportation