HUMR5132 – Human Rights Law in Context

Course content

The catalogue of international and regional human rights norms and their use in public discourse has expanded considerably since the adoption in 1948 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Similarly, the international and regional human rights monitoring and implementation mechanisms have gone through significant transformation. This expansion process of human rights norms, procedures, and institutions, and related controversies are analyzed at length in scholarly writing covering legal and other social sciences’ disciplines, as well as regularly debated in international and regional fora. Some of the main controversies and competing interests of different stakeholders are evident in the legal and political demands of individuals, national human rights institutions, States, international and regional organizations, and non-State actors more generally, including business and civil society actors.

The course addresses selected civil and political rights, socio-economic rights, and collective rights, as well as more general issues including access to justice, reparations for human rights violations, and extra-territorial application of human rights. In doing so, the course tries to offer an in-depth understanding of selected human rights - both from a theoretical and practical perspective - and analyze their implementation in the broader normative, procedural, and institutional contexts. The analysis tries to adopt a multi-disciplinary method, combining law and social sciences more generally, with a focus on the practice of international human rights mechanisms. The course covers a range of rights through the context of their implementation and enforcement, including through international courts, UN human rights treaty bodies, regional human rights courts and commissions, and national (human rights) institutions. The course uses practical examples to demonstrate enforcement challenges and achievements, introduces methods for measuring the impact of international human rights law at the domestic level, and illustrates how international cooperation and advocacy play critical roles in advancing fundamental human rights.

Learning outcome

After having completed this course, the student will have knowledge about:

• a good understanding of a selection of civil, political, socio-economic rights, and collective human rights, as well as issues of equality, access to justice, and extra-territorial application of human rights;
• knowledge about the historical and political background of the selected rights and how this affects current legal and political debates;
• knowledge about legal and philosophical debates and problems relating to access to justice;
• knowledge about the concrete implementation and enforcement of these rights through various international and regional human rights mechanisms;
• knowledge about the emergence of new human rights norms and the impact of international human rights law at the domestic level;
• knowledge about perceived and actual tensions between different human rights.

After having completed this course, the student will have skills to:

• identify different human rights and debate their respective justifications from legal and social sciences perspectives;
• assess procedural and substantive human rights from a legal perspective;
• assess how the application of international human rights law affects political and socio-legal processes;
• assess how substantive human rights are interpreted and applied in different contexts by various human rights mechanisms;
• present oral and written arguments about human rights, using relevant practice from various human rights mechanisms.

After having completed this course the student will have general competence to:

• understand the role and impact of various human rights mechanisms in monitoring and enforcing human rights;
• assess the relationship between legal and non-legal perspectives on human rights;
• assess how the interaction among different actors at the national, regional, and international levels determines the scope of the human right concerned;
• assess the effectiveness and impact of human rights law in a domestic context.

Admission to the course

The course is reserved for students enrolled in the master programme Theory and Practice of Human Rights. This course is not available for single course students.

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

Special admission requirements

Students must fill one of these requirements:

• Passed 1st - 3rd year of the 5-years degree Master of Laws (Master i rettsvitenskap at UiO) (or exams that qualify for exemption for these) or
• Hold a 5-years Master’s degree in Laws (Master i rettsvitenskap at UiO) or equivalent.

Exemptions from the formal prerequisites will be given to students with admission to the faculty`s own exchange or master’s degree programmes. This rule does not apply to students with admission to other master’s degree programmes at the University of Oslo, unless otherwise agreed.

Overlapping courses

• 10 credits overlap with HUMR4140 – Introduction to Human Rights Law (discontinued).
• 10 credits overlap with HUMR5130 – Introduction to the History, Philosophy and Politics of Human Rights (discontinued).

Teaching

Lectures and seminars with active student participation. 

Examination

Students are graded on the basis of a written home exam and an oral debate assignment.

Maximum length for written home exam is 5000 words. Front page, contents page (optional) and bibliography are not included. If footnotes are used in the text (at the bottom of each page), they are included in the word limits. 

Papers that exceed the word limit will not be accepted.

The written assignment account for 100 % of the total grade, the oral debate assignment is graded pass/fail. One total grade is given for the whole coursework.

In case of retake, a candidate must only retake the written assignment if the oral debate has been successfully passed previously.

Please note that if a student wish to file an appeal, only the written assignment will undergo a regrading. You cannot submit an appeal about oral or practical examinations, since the performance is not documented for future purposes.

You must familiarize yourself with the rules that apply to exam support materials, and the use of sources and citations. If you violate these rules, you may be suspected of cheating or attempted cheating. You can read about what the university considers cheating, and the consequences of cheating here.

Language of examination

The examination text is given in English, and you submit your response in English.

Grading scale

Home exam: Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.

Oral debate: Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.

Marking criteria: This guide is used by examiners for grading this course.

Resit an examination

• It is possible to take this exam up to 3 times. If you withdraw from the exam after the deadline or during the exam, this will be counted as an examination attempt. Students who wish to retake the exam in a later semester are not guaranteed that the course is ever repeated with a similar reading list, nor that the exam arrangement will be the same.

• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Resitting an examination.

More about examinations at UiO

• Use of sources and citations
• Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
• Withdrawal from an exam
• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Explanation of grades and appeals
• Resitting an exam
• Cheating/attempted cheating

You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.