Human Rights have become so ubiquitous in daily life that they appear as one of the most naturalized, self-evident “facts” of our time. Rights of women, immigrants, minorities, refugees, children, people with needs, religious communities - they are common part of political speeches, legal acts or commentaries in media. The aim of the course is to take human rights out of this naturalization, and show them in a new light of constant, revolutionary change, in their capacity to question our prejudice and privileges, and to demand equality on different scales and for different groups.
First part of the course is dedicated to origins of human rights, namely the French Declaration of Human Rights, the American Declaration of Independence and two centuries later, the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and its conceptual relation to different worldviews, e.g. cosmopolitanism, nationalism, capitalism, communism etc. The main question asked is whether human rights deserve to be called universal, or they appear as part of one particular ideology force especially vis-à-vis their relation to culture-specific issues. Moreover, two important processes for development and spreading of human rights are addressed, globalization and establishment of different transnational legal mechanisms for their protection, e.g. the European Court of Human Rights, the ICC etc.
Second part of the course deals with specific groups and their demands for human rights, looking at women’s rights, LGBT rights, rights of children, addressing particular issue defenders’ of rights of those groups raised, and legislations they were able to gain. The literature offered basically deals with history of different human rights movements, and how they changed notion of politically correct speech.
Finally, in third part three case studies are going to be addressed, namely right to privacy, rights of refugees and right to protect, and particular ways these cases were addressed in public discourses by media, politicians and NGOs creating discourses on human rights.
In media discourses on human rights, the focus will be on the NSA affair, and students will be asked to analyze writings of several US, UK and German media, in order to show different ways printed media reacted the affair, and the differences in roles ascribed to alleged victims, human rights defenders and human rights violators.
The second case study will deal with politicians discourses on refugees in Europe, where we will analyze speeches of presidents and prime ministers in Europe, after the infamous Lampedusa tragedy, to show tension between promise of human rights and their practical enforcement, as well as state-centered system of human rights protections.
Finally, public discourses on intervention and conflict are going to be addressed, focusing on main arguments in favor of "right to protect" (R2P) as a human right of potential victims and its conflict with long establish traditions of sovereignty on one hand, and global justice on the other.