Seminar options 2025

The Fundamentals of International Human Rights Law

Prof. Başak Çalı, Dr. Marija Jovanović

This core course provides students with a broad grounding  in the scope, content and interpretation of international human rights law (IHRL) and monitoring, enforcement and accountability mechanisms in IHRL.  The course is accessible to students who have no prior knowledge of international law or IHRL, as well as those who are seeking to broaden their understanding of IHRL.

The first part of the course examines the historical development of IHRL, the sources of IHRL  and principles of interpretation. The second part of the course explores international and regional human rights instruments and their enforcement mechanisms. In this part of the course, we examine and evaluate the work of the United Nations Charter Bodies, such as the UN Human Rights Council and United Nations Treaty Bodies, as well as the regional human rights treaties, courts and commissions in Africa, the Americas and Europe. The final part of the course examines a number of substantive themes, such as gender and human rights, protection of refugees, economic, social and cultural rights, business and human rights and international humanitarian law.

Teaching on the course comprises a mix of plenary lectures and seminars.

Human Rights Lawyering (advanced class)

Prof. Helen Duffy

This course, designed for advanced students with previous studies or experience in the human rights field, emphasises the role of legal professionals in the interpretation, application and enforcement of IHRL. Various human rights actors, forms of “human rights lawyering” and international, regional, and domestic systems of enforcement will be explored. The course will hone in on the role (and limits) of strategic human rights litigation (SHRL) and advocacy: what forms does human rights litigation take, pursuant to what and whose goals, with what impact, and subject to what legal strategies. Students will consider the role that various sources and human rights norms play, and the many challenges that arise in giving effect to the law in practice in the world today, from access to justice, to poor implementation, the responsibility of diversifying non-state actors and human rights backlash. Case studies will explore the role of human rights lawyering in response to contemporary challenges – such as the climate crisis, rights violations in armed conflict, enforced disappearance or torture, and democratic backsliding including threats to judicial independence.

Discussions are in a small dynamic study group, led by a professor and human rights practitioner, and enriched by brief presentations by invited guests with diverse experience of human rights lawyering. Students are encouraged, informally and through student presentations, to bring their own experience and perspectives from particular jurisdictions or issues to the group.

Since this is an advanced class, please note that participation is subject to approval from one of the Course Directors or the Lawyering tutor.

Note on cancellation of Gender, Sexuality and International Human Rights Law elective

Regrettably, we will not be able to offer the Gender, Sexuality and International Human Rights Law course as an afternoon elective this year. This was due to be taught by Professor Charles Ngwena who sadly passed away in Pretoria earlier this year. In place of the Gender, Sexuality and IHRL elective, a new course on Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence will be offered, taught by Dr Daragh Murray of Queen Mary University of London. Please see below for further information. Applicants who have already applied and made class choices will be contacted.

Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence

Dr Daragh Murray

This course examines the complex and nuanced impact Artificial Intelligence (AI)  exerts on both individuals and society, through an international human rights law lens. It is structured around four key objectives. First, understanding how AI works. This is not intended to replicate a computer science degree but rather will highlight those characteristics of AI relevant to any human rights law analysis. Second, understanding how AI engages human rights law. This will unpack both how AI can advance human rights protections, and how AI may cause harm to human rights. Third, understanding what is different about AI, and how the widespread adoption of AI can impact individuals’ ability to freely develop their identity and undermine the effective functioning of democratic societies.  Fourth, understanding how international human rights law can respond effectively to the complex, multifaceted and reverberative harms associated with AI. The course itself is divided into three sections. The first five classes are centred around explaining AI and introducing relevant international human rights law concepts. The middle section of the course examines AI’s impact, by means of a number of different case studies. These look at the use of AI by law enforcement, the military, and for the delivery of health, education and social welfare. The final five classes then look at the regulation of AI and approaches to accountability. A particular emphasis is placed on shifting human rights law from a primarily reactive, after-the-fact body of law, to a more anticipatory, before-the-fact, framework.

Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - Law and Practice

Ms. Meghna Abraham

This seminar critically explores the international legal and institutional systems for the protection of economic, social, and cultural rights. It focuses on the obligations that states have to ensure that all persons are able to access food, housing, healthcare, education, water, sanitation, protections at work, and an adequate standard of living. It will look at challenges around implementation, including the role of courts, companies, other governments, and inter-disciplinary approaches necessary to evaluate policies and budgets. It considers the extent to which international law should guide decisions on how governments allocate resources and whether they are required to address economic inequality, along with other forms of inequality. It will also discuss whether the international legal framework is fit for purpose to address major global challenges such as the climate and biodiversity crises, pandemics, and societal changes that may come about as a result of new technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age 

Prof. David Kaye

The right to freedom of expression has long been considered a cornerstone of democratic society and an essential element for human development. Yet it faces global challenges arguably not seen since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The digital age, for one thing, has transformed the public understanding of speech harms, triggering a wave of regulation in democratic and authoritarian societies alike. Digital technologies have not only provided new tools for censorship and the surveillance of journalists, opposition figures, and others; they have also created new tensions between rights, such as the privacy-expression tension encapsulated in the right to be forgotten. At the same time, government repression of criticism and dissent, expansion of defamation laws, barriers to access to information, and concentration of media, among many other problems, threaten expressive rights. Beyond government burdens on speech, other free speech debates are proliferating, from rights during protest, the problem of hate speech, and academic freedom. This course will address these issues and more, often but not exclusively focused on issues in the digital age. The course will center discussions on international and regional human rights law, largely exploring the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the Human Rights Committee and UN Special Procedures, as well as case law in African, European and Inter-American human rights mechanisms.

Refugees and International Human Rights Law

Prof. Stephen Meili

This course will examine international and domestic protections available to refugees. Its primary focus will be the 1951 Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol and other international instruments, and how they have been interpreted by various international, regional and national institutions. The course will emphasize the human rights approach to refugee law, i.e., the extent to which human rights instruments such as the Convention Against Torture and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights inform interpretations of the Refugee Convention. Given the ongoing refugee crisis in various parts of the world, we will pay particular attention to the role of regional human rights instruments applicable to refugees, including the Cartagena Declaration of 1984, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Organization of African Unity 1969 Convention. We will also analyse the way that the constitutionalisation of human rights law in many countries has impacted refugees and asylum-seekers, and the strategies of the advocates who argue for their protection. The course will combine lectures, discussions and in-class exercises such as oral arguments and debates.

War, Peace and Human Rights

Prof. Stuart Maslen

This course focuses on the rules applicable to armed conflict, particularly the conduct of hostilities (Hague Law) and the treatment of persons in the power of the enemy (Geneva Law). Key topics for discussion include identifying an armed conflict, the legality of means and methods of warfare, including the weapons used, piloted and unmanned bombing, blockades, cyberattacks, and conflict in space. Application of the law to non-state armed groups are covered as well as the relationship between warfare and law enforcement and between the law of armed conflict and jus ad bellum. We also consider the means by which the law of armed conflict is enforced in the current international system.