Genocide and Human Rights

Course Description

This course is designed to provide first year students with an intensive, multidisciplinary introduction to human rights theory and practice. We examine the topic of human rights from philosophical, historical, legal, political, and multicultural perspectives, with a special focus on the phenomenon of genocide. We begin with a discussion of the historical development of the doctrine of human rights, highlighting both the philosophical and the political-legal roots of the human rights tradition prior to the twentieth century. We then proceed the paradigm example of genocide in the twentieth century -- the Holocaust -- and show how these events influenced the development of the idea of human rights during the latter half of the twentieth century. Finally, we study the genocides in Cambodia and in Rwanda, and other cases of mass killings, and review recent proposals about how the international community should act to prevent and respond to genocide in the current century. The course includes several films and guest speakers. Course requirements include several short reaction essays, a research paper, and group presentations.