DESCPTION

This course provides a rigorous and critical introduction to the foundation, structure and operation of the international human rights movement from the Islamic perspective. The course enables students to take an analytic and critical stance and deal with questions of human rights. Students explore the key theoretical debates in the field, including the historical origin and character of the modern idea of human rights, the debate between universality and cultural relativism, between civil and human rights, between individual and community, and the historically contentious relationship between the West and the Rest in matters of sovereignty and human rights, drawing on real-life examples from current affairs. Students examine human rights in both theory and practice from political, social, legal, historical, and philosophical perspectives. Topics of investigation in this course include the contentious relationship between human rights and economic development and globalization, issues raised by poverty, cultural rights, women's rights and so on. Students explore ways in which human rights are sought to be realized in practice, both within countries and through transnational mechanisms such as the UN.