Human Rights, Democracy, Politics Selected Issues and Challenges

Lecture and Discussion in the context of „Cross Disciplinary Strategies“, 2 Semester/Spring 2018

 

Curriculum

This course aims at discussing with the students a number of case studies and current challenges on the basis of working groups and papers to be written and presented by the students.

 

1. Introduction, 9. March 2018, 08:30 – 18:00

Lecture: Overview of the meaning of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights contained in the two United Nations Convenants and the European Convention on Human Rights.

Preparation of a simulation of court case before the European Court of Human Rights: establishing of 4 groups to prepare the case and its court simulation until the next session.

Explanation of the tasks and requirements for writing and presenting the papers.

 

2. Student Tasks, 10. March – 15. April 2018

 

Preparing of the simulation in the 4 different working groups

 

Identifying topics for individual papers and submitting proposals of not more than 1 page latest on Monday, 9. April 2018.

 

3. Simulation of a Case before the European Court of Human Rights, 16. April 2018, 09:15 – 18:45

Interactive Seminar: Role Play, Feedback and Debriefing

Presentation of paper outlines by students, discussion and joint definition of the respective topics.

 

4. Student Tasks, 17. April – 7. June 2018

Individual research, writing of papers (max. 10 pages) and submitting them to all colleagues and course leader latest on 30 May 2018.

Preparing of oral presentation Reading all papers submitted and preparing of critical feedback

 

5. Paper Presentation and Discussion, 8. June 2018, 09:15 – 18:45

Paper Presentation and critical feedback by colleagues

Assessment

Students will be graded  on the basis of

(1) their participation and performance at the role play,

(2) their individual papers ,

(3) the presentation of the papers and

(4) their feedback on the papers of their colleagues and joint discussion.

Literature

Nowak, Januszewski, Hofstätter (eds.) (2012),  All Human Rights for All – Vienna Manual on Human Rights

Bisset (ed.) (2016), International Human Rights Documents