Human Rights and Global Justice (825M9A)

30 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Autumn teaching

 In this module, you’ll:

• take a critical approach to human rights as a colonial, political and historical ‘artefact’, revisiting the history of slavery, colonialism and settler-colonialism, as well as decolonisation struggles
• explore debates about the ways in which racialised and gendered assumptions shape how the ‘human’ of human rights has been recognised.

You’ll examine multiple sites of human rights in practice, such as:

• 'third-worldist' struggles of the twentieth-century and contemporary Global South uses of human rights instruments
• holding business accountable for harms to workers, communities and ecosystems
• strategic litigation to address global patterns of violence, inequality and climate breakdown
• anti-racist struggles and demands for reparative justice. 

Human rights have been described as ‘the world’s secular religion’ (Eli Wiesel). Yet they face challenges from populist parties and state policies. On this module you’ll engage with key questions such as:

• what are human rights?
• where do they come from?
• who has contributed to their development and why do we tend to tell Eurocentric stories about their emergence?
• what do human rights ‘do’ in world politics, for those in power and in struggle?

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 300 hours of work. This breaks down into about 33 hours of contact time and about 267 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2026/27. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.