MSc International Human Rights Law Options

This online course aims to develop the understanding of the theory and doctrine of international human rights law along with a concern for its application and realisation in practice. The course provides an overview of the key principles, concepts, doctrine and practice in the field to build a foundation for studying specialised topics later in the programme. The course is divided into two main components: theory and concepts; and monitoring and enforcement, covered in Michaelmas and Hilary terms respectively. Each component is composed of three units each. For each unit there is a reading period and a discussion period. There is a summative assessment, an essay of 3,000 words, at the end of each term, covering topics taught in that term. Students have a wide range of choice on the course. Whilst the reading list exposes the students to a vast breadth of international human rights norms and practice, the essay topics invite students to choose from amongst them (one out of six) and write on topics they find most relevant to their study and practice of human rights. 

Tutors: Profs Atrey, Ghanea, Mansell, Murray, Sellers, and Dr Alves Pinto

The course begins with a review of the international debate on the corporate responsibility to respect human rights, and traces the emergence, within the United Nations, of a new framework on business and human rights. In the years since the GPs were endorsed, a key critique from major human rights organizations and legal scholars has been that, despite the progress the GPs have brought, many survivors of corporate-related human rights abuses still lack access to justice. In fact, some critics have claimed that the third pillar of the UN Protect, Respect & Remedy framework – “access to remedy” – is the weakest one. In the second part of the course, we will therefore explore selected accountability mechanisms at the international, national and local or company levels. We start by looking at a draft international treaty on business and human rights, which is meant to address gaps in access to remedy that exist at the national level. We will also discuss legislation on mandatory human rights due diligence (“mHRDD”) that is emerging in several jurisdictions. We then spend three sessions looking at a number of existing measures and mechanisms, both judicial and non-judicial, through which corporations might be held accountable in some measure for their impact on human rights. These include transnational litigation, the OECD National Contact Point (NCP) system and enterprise-level grievance mechanisms. 

Next we focus on two areas that pose particularly difficult challenges in relation to human rights (extractive industries and their impact on Indigenous peoples; and global supply chains and violations of the rights of workers in these supply chains). We examine key issues and explore how civil society organizations, governments, companies themselves and other stakeholders have sought to address these. The seminar concludes with a discussion of an approach from within the private sector itself – sustainable or responsible investment – and the implications of this approach for strengthening corporate responsibility to respect human rights. The final session is reserved for revision.

This course explores both theory and practice, and students will have the opportunity to discuss and debate actual cases that demonstrate the complexities found at the intersection of business and human rights. 

Tutor: Dr Umlas

The first week of the course will be devoted to a general introduction to the instruments and mechanisms that frame and enforce the rights of children in international human rights law. Following a global overview in seminar 1, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights of the Child will be explored, as they are the two instruments solely dedicated to children’s rights in public international law. Seminars 3 and 4 take up the issue of enforcement of children’s rights through the communications procedure under the CRC.

In the second week we then move on to examine specific thematic rights. Seminar 6 explores children’s rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly; seminar 7 considers children and environmental rights, focusing in on a contemporary case example. An exploration of social and economic rights through case studies of using litigation to achieve equal access to education is the topic of seminar 8.

In the third week, in seminar 9 we will discuss the contemporary issues relating to children in situations of armed conflict and children recruited or exploited by groups designated as terrorist, and the return of children of ‘foreign fighters’. Seminar 10 examines the rights of children in situations of migration – with a critical review of controversial aspects of two joint general comments of the CRC and the Committee on Migrant Workers. The rights of children deprived of their liberty is the theme to be explored in Seminar 11- with a focus on aspects of the recent Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty relevant to International Human Rights Law. Seminar 12 is retained for general discussion and revision of any aspects of the course.  

Tutor: Prof Skelton

The course starts by retracing the modern bases of international humanitarian law as in The Fourth Hague Convention of 1907. Thereafter, review of the attempt to create an international tribunal at the end of World War I will allow students to contemplate the “missed” opportunities to implement the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles that explicitly sought judicial redress of wartime atrocities. The recitation of war crimes, the proposals of new international crimes and the introduction of new doctrinal approaches to international criminal law will be garnered from the 1919 Report of the War Commission.  Students will learn about the international community’s early views concerning head of state immunity, defenses of superior orders, breaches of the peace as well as the nascent contours of crimes against humanity. The Leipzig war crime prosecution of the Dover Castle case will be discussed.

Subsequently, the milestone establishment of the WWII Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals, replete with their governing Charters, will be studied. Significant parts of the judgments of each of the International Military Tribunals will be assessed through a historical lens that observes the systemic or structural criminal nature of what were termed “the total wars” in Europe and in Asia during  the mid-20th century. Also, students will read excerpts from the subsequent military trials that were held for minor defendants in both theaters of war.

The second section of the course concentrates on the creation of modern international criminal judicial institutions. The International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute and the statutes of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, together with that of the Special Court for Sierra Leone will be compared and contemplated. The jurisprudence of these courts and tribunals along with that of the Extraordinary Chamber of the Cambodian Court will serve to introduce students to a more detailed exposé of current issues status in international criminal law. Case law excerpts dealing with the substantive holdings on war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and an examination of the requirements of the crime of aggression will inform the discussions. The application of doctrines of individual criminal responsibility such as joint criminal enterprise and superior responsibility assist our analysis of the evolving, modern international criminal law jurisprudence.

This option is not offered in 2024-25.

This course has as its focal point economic, social and cultural rights (“ESCRs”) but these are viewed within a wider context, particularly of poverty, at both the global and local levels. Poverty is a gross violation of human rights and its eradication is necessary for the realisation of human rights. These rights and the eradication of poverty are also central to the development enterprise. The course therefore aims to provide an examination of ESCRs against this wider background. In the last thirty years emphasis has moved from reclaiming ESCRs, which are now well established in theory and increasingly in practice, to improving their implementation in the national and international spheres and evaluating impact. The course situates itself at the cutting edge of academic debate and global practice.

After an introduction to the wider context, the first part of the course will examine the nature and scope of ESCRs (to health, housing, water, food, education and work) and of other rights relevant to our topic. We will also consider the players who have obligations, responsibilities or influence in their delivery; and the institutions and tools available at international and domestic level to implement them.

The duration and intensive nature of this course mean that there must be limitations to its scope. Thus, there is little discussion of cultural rights and the consideration of marginalised groups is limited to a general discussion of equality and non-discrimination. Regional mechanisms are not directly addressed, although some regional instruments and cases are considered under specific topics. Environmental rights and sustainability are similarly not directly raised (Aspects of these topics are considered in Fundamentals and other summer courses). In the final seminar we will step back to reflect on the future of ESCRs.

Tutor: Adv Brickhill

International human rights law norms and mechanisms are predicated on the idea that they will bring about sustainable change at home, at the national level. The international mechanisms for the promotion, protection and respect of human rights are there to lend impetus and accountability until such a time that these legal standards are adequately protected domestically. Though international and regional mechanisms will always hold utility, one may expect that their need and workload should diminish over time as the burden shifts to national implementation and, indeed, human rights becoming embedded domestically. The means by which such shifts have and may occur, however, is the subject of a growing literature which we will seek to interrogate in this course.

In the first section we will examine various theories, models and means of bringing about human rights change before turning to the second section and exploring the domestication of human rights law. The course will not consider the impact of regional human rights systems on domestication, the domestication of international criminal law or the application of international human rights standards extraterritorially, as these are topics that are explored elsewhere in the programme.

Tutor: Prof Ghanea

The course begins with an introduction to the architecture of international environmental law. In the first three sessions, participants will explore the major types of international environmental problems and the main tools available to address them, trace the evolution of international environmental law, discuss issues of compliance and enforcement, and be introduced to the ethical grounds for environmental policy-making. This discussion will enable a more insightful examination of the points of intersection and divergence between international environmental law and international human rights law.

In the next five sessions, participants will discuss the ways that environmental protection can be articulated in the language of human rights. They will examine the “greening” of human rights to life, health, and property, among others, which has given rise to a detailed body of environmental human rights law; consider the human right to a healthy environment as it has been adopted at national and international levels; and discuss the movement to recognize “rights of nature”.

The final three substantive sessions will look at the application of human rights norms to two urgent global environmental challenges: the loss of biodiversity, and the effects of climate change.

The last session is reserved for revision.

Tutor: Prof Knox

This course is designed to provide candidates with a comprehensive introduction to the regulation of international and non-international armed conflicts within international law (otherwise known as the jus in bello, in contrast to the jus ad bellum (or the international legal regulation of force)).

One of the guiding themes shall be the historical evolution of and assumptions behind this law, spanning from some of the original articulations of this field (1863 Lieber Code) to where things stand today. A brief introduction to moral, military and cultural philosophy shall be followed by an assessment of the basic framework for regulation established by the four Geneva Conventions of August 1949 and their Additional Protocols of June 1977. We shall then investigate key components of this law—the system for distinguishing between lawful and unlawful combatants, the protections offered to prisoners of war in the Third Geneva Convention, and the scope of so-called ‘fundamental guarantees’ contained in the First Additional Protocol. We shall also consider the principles governing targeting decisions during hostilities, and the means (e.g. nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, landmines and laser weapons) and methods (e.g. sexual violence and starvation) of warfare.

Throughout, our classes shall be informed by a series of case studies (e.g. the conditions of Guantánamo Bay; the treatment of prisoners-of-war during the Ethiopian–Eritrean War (1998–2000); the targeting decisions during Operation Desert Storm (1991) and Operation Allied Force regarding Kosovo (1999)) and consideration shall be given to specific fields of protection (e.g. the environment, cultural property and belligerent occupation) and the burgeoning jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice in this area (e.g. Israeli Wall Advisory Opinion (2004), Nuclear Weapons Advisory Opinion (1996)). Our classes shall conclude by an examination of the evolution in thinking on the implementation and enforcement of this law in all its many manifestations—the role of belligerent reprisals, the system of protecting powers, the phenomenal rise of international criminal law and the prospect of amnesties as envisaged by international humanitarian law.

Tutor: Prof Kritsiotis

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.

Tutor: Dr Probert

The interconnected topics of racial discrimination, minorities, and indigenous peoples count among the most dynamic areas of contemporary human rights law. They are also complex and challenging in that they raise questions of universalism and locality, individual and collective rights, and how human rights discourses engage with cultural diversity.

One paradigmatic ‘universalist’ approach to ethnic questions is represented by standards prohibiting racial discrimination, including the influential International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), and its monitoring body, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). Contrasting with this universal approach, standards on minority rights address the claims of particular groups over a limited range of rights, though it must also be borne in mind that minorities and indigenous peoples, additionally to their specific rights, enjoy the full protection of general human rights. Despite their long history as part of international law, minority rights are absent (at least by name) from the UN Charter and the UDHR, but have regained a place in international law, particularly since the end of the Cold War through instruments such as the UN Declaration on the Rights of Persons belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities. 

The rights of indigenous peoples also represented a neglected sphere in human rights law but have been invigorated through, inter alia, the work of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the adoption in 2007 by the General Assembly of the United Nations of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the adoption in 2016 by the OAS of the American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, as well as through recognition of indigenous rights in the practice of UN human rights ‘treaty bodies’. Minority rights are often said to occupy an intermediate position between ‘purely’ individual rights, and full collective or group rights, a contention that will be analysed in our seminars. Indigenous rights, on the other hand, are clearer on their overall collective/group focus, presenting challenges regarding their relationship to individual human rights, as well as raising practical questions in areas such as self-determination, rights to lands, territories and mineral resources, development, participation, and ‘free, prior and informed consent’.

The course aims to provide participants with an overview of the instruments, institutions, norms and concepts relevant to the three areas above, mindful of their interconnections and their setting in the broader framework of human rights law. As we work through the materials, participants should develop the ability to conceptualise key questions relating to ethnicity and identity, as well as analyse and interpret the leading texts in their context. Through this process, we learn to understand the potential (and limits) of normative regulation in the management of ethnic and indigenous questions, bearing in mind the poet MacNeice’s verdict on the ‘incorrigibly plural’ nature of the world we inhabit.

Tutor: Profs Castellino or Xanthaki

Refugees have a specific status under international law granting them international protection. The global framework of international human rights and refugee law therefore has practical significance for this at risk group of persons. This module explores the legal and policy tools in place to address the situation of refugees and asylum-seekers. Consideration is given to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, and other relevant international human rights instruments. A central objective of this module is to promote a clear understanding of international refugee law in its human rights setting.

The module will include examination of: the legal concept of refugee; the inclusion, exclusion and cessation clauses; protection from refoulement and rights at the border; rights and duties under the 1951 Convention; and challenges to defining a refugee. Questions of concern will include: Who is a refugee in international law? What rights does international refugee law provide to asylum-seekers and refugees? How can one reconcile the rights of states with the rights of refugees? What role is played by international human rights standards? How should we assess compliance at national levels?

International refugee law embraces standards as well as institutional mechanisms. Although it does not have a dedicated “treaty-monitoring body”, the implementation of the 1951 Convention by States parties is supervised by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and his/her office. UNHCR also has a separate distinct mandate to provide international protection and is often substituting in practice for the role expected of States. Governments in turn are expected to cooperate with UNHCR in respect of finding solutions. What part does UNHCR play in international refugee protection? How has its mandate expanded, and why has this happened? How effective is it? How should its performance be measured? What is UNHCR’s future as a lead actor in the increasingly diversified international system, and the emergence of newer international and UN actors (e.g. UN Migration Agency, OCHA)?

International refugee law is a specialised regime within a broader body of international human rights law. The relationship between the two legal fields is, however, a matter of ongoing debate. Given the emphasis placed in international human rights law on everyone, it is of potential relevance to all human beings. The module thus explores international human rights law to assess its significance for refugees and considers how the two regimes intersect. 

Regional responses raise profound questions for global refugee protection (particularly at a time when there is an extensive international debate about responsibility-sharing and the concept of global solidarity). A number of the major global (refugee-producing and –receiving) regions – Africa, Latin America and Europe – have developed parallel refugee protection instruments and systems, at times complementing and at times potentially undermining the international system. Why have the regional treaties/instruments developed? What are the implications for the 1951 Convention and 1967 Protocol as the central global treaties? Has the experience been positive?

The module will also include analysis of existing pressing phenomena such as legal, procedural and practical questions around subsuming ‘conflict refugees’ within the 1951 Convention refugee definition; and also deal with legal, philosophical and legal questions around internal (versus external) displacement.

Tutor: Dr Edwards, Prof Harvey or Prof Meili

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.

Tutors: Prof Viljoen with contributions from Prof Leach

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.

Tutor: Prof Shaheed

This course is concerned with the theoretical foundations of the field of international human rights law. In particular, its purpose is to explore the diversity of range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the field. Each seminar is dedicated to go in depth into one of the approaches: legal, moral, historical, TWAIL, feminist, intersectional, anthropological, comparativist, critical and skeptical. The intention is not only to introduce these various approaches but to interrogate the value of approaching the field from a range of theoretical perspectives. As scholars and practitioners in the field, most of our work grapples with the logic and praxis of the field from within—to do with its internal and specific workings as embodied in the text of international treaties, and as evinced in the operation of enforcement institutions (viz. international organisations, treaty bodies, NHRIs, domestic and international courts) and actors including NGOS and activists. But in order to succeed at the internal perspective, this course provides the external/theoretical perspective, helping build an ‘insider-outsider’, or better, ‘subjective-objective’, perspective to IHRL.

Tutor: Dr Atrey

This course seeks to introduce students to the most recent developments in state and societal practice and contemporary debates that have emerged from the field of transitional justice, i.e., the attempts to come to terms with legacies of mass atrocities of the recent past in the context of transitions from dictatorship to democracy or from conflict to peace. The course traces the field’s origins and its contributions to normative developments in the relevant international human rights law. The historic backdrop of post-authoritarian Latin America, post-apartheid South Africa and post-communist Eastern Europe is analyzed, together with more contemporary efforts in Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, Côte d’Ivoire, Colombia.  In particular, we will explore the set of victims’ rights that developed and came to serve as the key mechanisms within the transitional justice framework, namely: criminal accountability, truth-seeking, reparations, and measures of non-recurrence. Additionally, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each component including how these play out depending on the timing, sequencing, and incorporation either in their totality or discrete parts, by looking to state practices.

The second half of the course will focus on contemporary debates including the updated dialogue on peace versus justice; the role of reconciliation; transitional justice mechanisms as applied to historic grievances, economic, social and cultural rights, and the plight of communities specifically affected; the coalescing of rule of law and transitional justice efforts; reforming of justice and security institutions and building confidence and legitimacy in them; addressing the root causes of conflict. The course will end with an attempt at an assessment of the success of transitional justice in preventing new abuses and an exploration of its role in international human rights law and conflict resolution.

Tutor: Prof Méndez

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 within the universal/cultural relativism debate. In this the third section, the class will attempt to discuss strategies and approaches that reconcile cultural diversity with the rights of women. The final section will concentrate on issues relating to violence against women and sexual minorities, intersectionality as well as participation and reproductive rights.

Tutor: Prof Banda

All of the core treaties explicitly embrace and centralise the value of and right to ‘equality’ in their text. Two of the nine core human rights treaties have the word ‘discrimination’ in their title. Equality and non-discrimination are omnipresent and, arguably, omnipotent in international human rights law. But what are they and how do we discern their meaning, interpretation, application and significance in international human rights law? This course seeks to answer this question by conceiving the field of ‘international equality law’. Across twelve seminars, this course aims to provide a framework for understanding the field as a semi-autonomous field with its own point or purpose, and its own governing principles. The course is aimed at understanding this point and purpose and set of governing principles both independently and within the parent field of international human rights law. Doctrinally, the focus will be on the following treaties, namely, and chronologically: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). There will also be references made to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The focus will not be on the specific rights provisions within these treaties but will be on isolating the work equality and non-discrimination do within them and their relation to the human rights contained in these treaties. Importantly, the course relies on both legal and non-legal literature to make sense of the field, especially materials in political theory and philosophy. The course ultimately provides a justification for the field of international equality law as being the binding force which brings much of international human rights law together as a whole and without which international human rights law may lack justification of its own.

Tutor: Dr Atrey

You will write a dissertation of 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 dissertation plan. 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.