Human rights in international and national law

This course discusses human rights as a legal concept, and aims to provide students with a good understanding of human rights law.

Knowledge

After having completed this course the student will have:

• a good understanding of institutions and mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights at global, regional and national level
• a good understanding of important legal characteristics of human rights treaties, such as their scope of application, their supervision and enforcement mechanisms, and their legal impact on a national and international level
• knowledge about the legal developments in human rights from 1789 through to the present
• knowledge about important human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and regional and international human rights treaties
• knowledge about selected substantive rights, which will be addressed more in-depth in other courses
  

Skills

After having completed this course the student will be able to:

• identify different tools for legal interpretation of key texts
• problematise human rights questions in a legal context
• identify key institutional mechanisms for addressing human rights concerns
• present orally and in writing arguments on human rights from a legal perspective
  

General competence

After having completed this course the student will be able to:

• view human rights law in a broader context of international law
• understand the potential and the limitations of law as a tool to address human rights concerns

No obligatory prerequisites beyond the minimum requirements for entrance to higher education in Norway.

Students at UiO must apply for courses in StudentWeb.

International applicants, if you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures for international applicants.

You may register for this course if you have admission to a Master's programme at UiO. All applicants must fill the formal prerequisites.
Priority is given to students on the programme Theory and Practice of Human Rights (master's two years).

The examination in this course is not available for external candidates. Only students admitted to the course may sit for the examination.

Lectures and eventually seminars

Access to teaching

A student who has completed compulsory instruction and coursework and has had these approved, is not entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework. A student who has been admitted to a course, but who has not completed compulsory instruction and coursework or had these approved, is entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework, depending on available capacity.

Students are graded on the basis of a 4 hours digital school exam and a midterm paper exam submission.

The exam topics may include issues from mandatory and recommended prerequisites.

Maximum length for midterm paper exam is 2500 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 digital school exam accounts for 100% of the total grade, while the midterm paper is graded pass/fail. One total grade is given for the entire coursework.

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.

All exam resources allowed

Previous exam papers

You can usually resit an exam, but the conditions depend on whether you had a valid reason for absence from the regular exam. Read more about resitting an exam.

If a student has submitted a written assignment a second time in the same course s/he can only submit it in a new version. This means that there must be another title and theme, or that the new version must be considerably changed from the first version.

Students who wish to retake the exam in a later semester must also deliver and pass the mid-term essay, even if they have submitted and passed the mid-term essay earlier. 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.

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.

English

You may request an explanation of your grades, and you may also appeal against your grades or make a complaint about formal examination errors. Read more about explanations and appeals.

Evaluation

Feedback from our students is essential to us in our efforts to ensure and further improve the high quality of our programmes and courses. All courses are subject to continuous evaluation. At regular intervals we also ask students on a particular course to participate in a more comprehensive, periodic evaluation of this course.

Overlapping courses

Required reading

Main textbook:

• Javaid Rehman, International Human Rights Law (Pearson, 2nd ed., 2010), pp. 3-351, 715-807 (442 pages)

Articles:

• Catarina Krause and Martin Scheinin (eds.), International Protection of Human Rights: A Textbook (Åbo Akademi University, 1st edition, 2009), pp. 3-58, 677-599 (79 p.)
• Malcolm Langford (ed.), Social Rights Jurisprudence: Emerging Trends in International and Comparative Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 477-516, 613-627 (55 p.)
• Henry J. Steiner, Philip Alston and Ryan Goodman, International Human Rights in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 2007), pp. 1087-1123 (37 p.)
• Marko Milanović, "From Compromise to Principle: Clarifying the Concept of State Jurisdiction in Human Rights Treaties", 8 Human Rights Law Review (2008) pp. 411-448 (38 p.)

Apart from Rehman¿s textbook, the literature is available in a compilation of texts (kompendium) which can be purchased from Gnist Akademika bookstore at the Law faculty (Domus Nova building). During the course, announcements will be made about supplementary literature in relation to each lecture, which students will be encouraged, but not required, to read.

Online research guide, not included in the compilation of texts:

• Introduction to Public International Law Research, available at http://www.nyulawglobal.org/Globalex/Public_International_Law_Research1.htm

If you have a disability or a health problem that entails significant inconvenience in an examination situation, you may be considered for special examination arrangements. Mothers who are breastfeeding may apply for extra time to complete the exam.

A student may sit this exam up to 3 times. If a student wishes to withdraw from the exam, s/he must do so in StudentWeb at least two weeks prior to the first day of the exam. Failure to do so will be counted as one of the three opportunities to sit the exam.