Global Human Rights

Instructor: William Hamilton, Ph.D. Contact information: Bill_Hamilton@uncg.edu, phone 336.315.7028 MA Program in Liberal Studies (DCL) The University of North Carolina at Greensboro P.O. Box 26170 Greensboro, NC 27402-6170

Course description and learning objectives:

The Center for Universal Justice and Dignity, a grassroots, intensely focused, and highly respected international human rights organization, provides the context for this course. MALS students will become trainees with the fictional Center to develop human rights investigation and critical reporting skills. The Center’s highly interactive training program requires trainees to learn through five active investigations of human rights issues around the world. These training expeditions involve virtual travel around the globe to investigate allegations of human rights abuses: government bungling of hurricane relief efforts in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, sex trafficking in Thailand, child soldiers in Sri Lanka, and detainee abuse in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay.

After successful completion of the expeditions (50% of course grade), each trainee will participate as a member of group research unit assigned by the Director to investigate current international human rights problems and issue a team report (50% of course grade), submitted in Wiki format to the Center’s website.

The success of each group investigation depends on the commitment of all participants. The Center firmly believes that collaborative inquiry provides the most effective environment for understanding complex human problems and making sound recommendations for resolving them.

The Center’s mission and structure provide the educational goals and framework for the course. The Center trains human rights monitors around the world and provides educational resources for schools, government organizations, and NGOs. It is divided into five functional units that focus research and education into the following investigative areas: women and children; peace, safety, and security; health and education; economic justice; and the rights of prisoners and detainees.

Trainees (MALS graduate students) will develop critical familiarity with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, its historical antecedents in the U.S. Bill of Rights and the French Rights of Man, and explore the theoretical, cultural, and political foundations of these documents. In addition to two books on the human rights theory, all the remaining readings are available online at no charge. These include all the relevant international protocols and treaties. Trainees will also be expected to view documentaries and films and read additional materials that

inform their human rights research on specific regional studies. The course will enable trainees to learn research methods that encourage investigative independence and creativity while maintaining academic rigor in order to understand complex social issues and recommend achievable solutions in their reports to the agency Director (professor).

An important note on the textbooks and readings:

It is critical that you read both required texts by Patrick Hayden and Michael Perry carefully so that your research and findings are well-grounded in human rights theory. These readings contain the foundational moral and political philosophies that undergird all modern understandings of human rights. Student will be expected to demonstrate in their training reports and final investigations solid and explicit grounding in theory. In other words, you will need to cite specific philosophers whose insights provide application to your particular area of investigation and explain why those theories apply.

In addition, the required online resources, such as the U.N. training manuals and various international treaties and conventions, are made available to you free of charge. The U.N. reporting and monitoring manuals are extensive and you are expected to read selectively to find the information you need to do quality human rights reporting.

Grading: Course grades will be based on five brief research papers (900-1200 words each), which are essentially reports from the five training expeditions [50%], and a final group report of 2000-3000 words (50%) on an assigned research area. Active participation by each trainee in research unit blogs and wikis is a quantifiable feature and accounts for a significant percentage of individual grades for the final report.

Required Readings:

Books (available through the UNCG Bookstore)

• Patrick Hayden, The Philosophy of Human Rights: Readings in Context, St. Paul, MN: Paragon House (2001). ISBN 1557787905

• Michael J. Perry, The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries, New York: Oxford University Press (2003). ISBN 9780195138283

Legally binding treaties and protocols (available as course links)

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) • U.S. Bill of Rights • French Rights of Man • The Human Rights Act of 1998 (United Kingdom), an introduction • The European Convention of Human Rights

Online Resources

• Human Rights Magazine, The American Bar Association http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr.html

• On-line subscription to one of the following newspapers: New York Times (nytimes.com), Washington Post (washingtonpost.com), The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/).

• Web subscriptions to Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org/), Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/).

• Manual on human rights reporting, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/manualhrren.pdf

• General website, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights http://www.un.org/rights/

Articles

• David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti, “A Window Into C.I.A.’s Embrace of Secret Jails”, New York Times, August 12, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/world/13foggo.html?nl=pol&emc=pol

• Scott Shane, “2 U.S. Architects of Harsh Tactics in 0/11’s Wake”, New York Times, August 11, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/12/us/12psychs.html?scp=2&sq=Scott%20shane&st=cse

• Seymour Hersh’s 2004 New Yorker article “Torture at Abu Ghraib” (http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact)

• Alan Brinkley, “Black Sites,” New York Times Book Review, August 3, 2008, on Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/books/review/Brinkley-t.html?emc=eta1

• Bryan Burrough, “A Civilian Action,” New York Times Book Review, August 10, 2008, on Jonathan Mahler, The Challenge: Hamdan v. Rumsfeld and the Fight Over Presidential Power http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/books/review/Burrough-t.html?emc=eta1

• Howard Davidson, “The Convention on the Rights of the Child: A Call for U.S. Participation,” in Human Rights Magazine, http://www.abanet.org/irr/hr/winter05/intro.html

• Alberto J. Mora, “Weakening America: The Costs of Legalized Cruelty,” a speech to the American Bar Association’s Center for Human Rights. Mora served as General Counsel of the U.S. Navy and challenged the Department of Defense not to sanction mistreatment of Guantámo detainees http://www.abavideonews.org/ABA496/media/pdf/navycounsel_OMKall.pdf

Academic Integrity Policy:

Please review UNCG’s policies regarding plagiarism before you begin work on the course (http://academicintegrity.uncg.edu). You are expected to abide by these policies for all work

submitted in this course. Violations of the policies will incur sanctions that at the very least include an F for individual assignments and could result in a failing grade for the entire course and expulsion from the graduate program. Submitting someone else’s work for your own, borrowing outside material without attribution, and failing to cite all sources could result in failure and expulsion. Consult the MALS online handbook, the MLA Handbook, or the Chicago Manual of Style if you have questions about appropriate citations. All MALS students are expected to conduct graduate level research and follow acceptable academic protocol on all assignments.