78018 Human Rights: International and Comparative Perspectives

Requisite(s): 77885c Legal Process and Legal Research OR 60 credit points of completed study in C04148 Master of Law and Legal Practice

These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses. See access conditions.

This subject provides students with the 'architecture' for the enforcement of international human rights law in jurisdictions across the globe. After examining some of the cutting-edge policy themes related to contemporary human rights protection (cultural relativism, globalisation, religion and human rights), we explore, in turn, the transnational mechanisms for the protection of human rights that exist in the world today. The subject covers the UN system, the Council of Europe and the European Union, the Inter-American system for the protection of human rights, and the Inter-African system.

We then turn to the question of domestic enforcement of these rules, and the manner in which courts in various jurisdictions have been empowered to issue orders to protect human rights principles. The current subject coordinator practises in the courts of the United Kingdom, so the subject looks in detail at the rules that have domesticated the European Convention of Human Rights in that country, and then examines in overview the approach employed to human rights protection in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa.