Transcript Natural Rights - University of Sussex

Human Rights
3rd Year Advanced Option
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Human Rights
Course Overview
With the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in
1948, every human was declared to have a set of innate and inalienable human rights
(i.e. they cannot be given away or taken away). In the following years a complex system
of human rights conventions has established a global system for implementing human
rights which, assisted by NGOS, has turned human rights into a global discourse, but one
which is transformed as it is applied to particular circumstances. This course explores the
relationship between the universal aspirations of human rights and the 'friction' (Tsing
2004) that occurs when these aspirations are applied to particular locations and to
particular categories of persons (women, children); asks whether human rights are
antagonistic to other cultures (cultural relativism), but also how human rights may
generate and protect (essentialist) cultures (indigenous peoples, 'difference'
multiculturalism; minorities); and, how rights are always enabling, but are also restrictive
(asylum and refugees). Finally, the course considers the strengths and weaknesses of
the two main responses to the massive violation of human rights (truth commissions;
international tribunals).
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Human Rights
Week 1 – The Historical Emergence of ‘Natural Rights
Week 2 – The United Nations Human Rights System
Week 3 – Cultural Relativism vs. Universal Rights
Week 4 – Are there ‘Group rights’ (indigenous groups; multiculturalism)?
Week 5 – Gender and Rights
Week 6 – Child Rights
Week 7 – Social and Economic Rights
Week 8 – The Right to Refuge and Asylum
Week 9 – Truth Commissions
Week 10 – International Criminal Tribunals
Week 11 – One-to-one Tutorials
Week 12 – Essay workshop
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Recent Titles
(Major: 7,000 words; Minor: 3,500)
• Child Soldiers: Choice and Human Rights.
• How is the Right to Food Affected by Transnationals Operating in the Food
Industry?
• A Time for Truth: Would Northern Ireland Benefit from a Truth Commission?
• How can the use of the Term ‘Moral Panic’ Inform Anthropological
Understanding of the UK Response to Asylum Seekers?
• An Analysis of Indefinite House Arrest in the UK and Whether this Constitutes
Torture in the Light of Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib?
• To What Extent can the Cultural Relativist Argument Depicting ‘Chinese
Values’ be a Vindication for China’s Reservations over Full Participation in the
International Human Rights System?
• A Critical Assessment of Universal Rights in Dealing with the Issue of FGM.
• Lights, Camera, Action! The Visual Culture of Human Rights Advocacy.
• Applying Economic and Social Rights in Palestine.
• The Challenge of Collective Rights as Human Rights in Kenya.
• Darfur and the Potential Role of Anthropology in Human Rights Advocacy.
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Human Rights
Course Tutor
Nigel Eltringham
(Dept. of Anthropology)
[email protected]
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/anthropology/people/pe
oplelists/person/158813
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