HUMAN RIGHTS SENIOR SEMINAR

Department of Political Science - Columbia University

HR/PS W3995y

 

Prof. Shareen Hertel                                                                                                                                      Spring 2004

Office: 931 IAB  Tel: 854-2479                                                                                                                    Day/Time: Mondays, 2:10 - 4 p.m.

Email: sh451@columbia.edu                                                                                                                          Locale: 501-A International Affairs Building

Office hours: Wednesdays, 3-5 p.m.

 

This course explores cutting edge areas in contemporary human rights theory, institutions and advocacy. Designed for senior undergraduates with significant background in basic human rights concepts, it is conducted in a seminar style. At various points in the course, guest human rights scholars and activists are invited to speak on their work and take part in discussion and debate with students. The aim is to strengthen students’ ability to grapple with a range of human rights topics through individual writing and group discussion:

 

Readings are assigned for each session. On Mondays, the instructor will circulate via email a set of questions related to the week’s readings. Students should choose one question, develop a short (1 page, single spaced, 12-point type) written response either in the style of an “Executive Memo,” either to the head of a faculty committee or to the director of a human rights nongovernmental organization (NGO), as instructed by the professor that week. Students should come to class prepared to discuss and then hand in their memos.                                                             [20% of course grade]

                                                                       

Independent research papers are prepared by students on topics approved by the instructor. These are expected to be scholarly in content and style but may also include a list of policy recommendations, if appropriate to the topic. Maximum length: 20 pages (not including bibliography), due one week after the final day of class; this is a firm deadline (no extentions). During the last two weeks of the course, students will make formal in-class presentations (7-10 minutes) on their papers-in-progress.

                                                                                                [70% of course grade]

 

Class participation in this course is essential. Following class sessions in which guest speakers are featured, students should prepare a short critique (1 page, single-spaced, 12-point) of the speaker’s presentation, due at the beginning of the NEXT class session. Critiques should including analysis of: 1) the most intellectually provocative aspect of the speaker’s talk -- What was most interesting point? Why? How does it relate to at least one course reading?; 2) the most action-oriented points raised by the speaker -- Did the speaker recommend specific actions that activists could take to enhance human rights protection or promotion? Did she/he make recommendations for institutional reform? How practical were her/his suggestions? Why?

[10% of course grade]

 

 

 

Logistics.  Books are available for purchase in paperback and have been ordered at Labyrinth Books; a book list is included at the end of this syllabus. Books are also available on reserve at the Butler Library Reserve Desk; chapters of books not available for purchase are also on reserve there. Articles are on reserve at Butler Library, and many can be obtained online (website addresses are indicated in the syllabus). The entire reserve list can be accessed via the Columbia University library webpage; go to the Lehman Library area on the website and click on the instructor’s name and course. You can link to many of the articles electronically directly from the reserves. Students are encouraged to use the Courseworks webpage created for this course; it can be accessed from the main Columbia University webpage, via the “Courses” button. The reserve list is also accessible electronically through Courseworks.

 

INTRODUCTION

Week 1 (week of 1/26/04)

 

THEORY

Week 2 (2/2/04): Universality and its challenges

            Mahmood Monshipouri, Neil Engelhart, Andrew J. Nathan, Kavita Philip, editors. Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003). Read the Introduction and Chapters 2, 3, 7 and 10.

            Martha Meijer, editor, Dealing with Human Rights: Asian and Western Views on the Value of Human Rights (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2001) – chapters 4 and 5, by Lee Kuan Yew and by Kim Dae Jung.

Recommended: Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).

 

Week 3 (week of 2/9/04): Human rights and human security: contemporary dilemmas.

Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics & Idolatry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

Jerry Piasecki, Marie In the Shadow of the Lion: A Humanitarian Novel (New York: United Nations, 2001).

Judy A. Benjamin, “Conflict, Post-Conflict and HIV/AIDS – The Gender Connections: Women, War and HIV/AIDS: West Africa and the Great Lakes (Washington, DC: The World Bank, March 2001). Available electronically via:

http://www.siyanda.org/static/benjamin_conflict.htm

 

Week 4 (week of 2/16/04): Human rights and humanitarian intervention: protection at what cost?

Fionnula Ni’Aolain, “Emergency, War and International Law: Another Perspective,” Nordic Journal of International Law 70, Issue 1/2 (2001): 26-63.             Kathleen Newland, “Refugee Protection and Assistance,” and Timothy D. Sisk, “Violence: Intrastate Conflict” both chapters in P.J. Simmons and Chantal deJonge Oudraat, Managing Global Issues (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, distributed by Brookings, 2001).

Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

INSTITUTIONS

Week 5 (week of 2/23/04): Human rights treaty-making, from the bottom up: The case of the landmine treaty.

Max Cameron, Robert Lawson, and Brian Thomas, editors, To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Band Landmines (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

Don Hubert, The Landmine Ban: A Case Study in Humanitarian Intervention, Occasional Paper #42, Watson Institute for International Studies, Brown University (2000). Available electronically via: http://www.watsoninstitute.org/pub/op42.pdf

* Also: read the full text of the Convention on the Prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of antipersonnel mines and on their destruction, available electronically via: http://www.icbl.org/treaty/text.php3

* Also: review the website of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines:

http://www.icbl.org/

 

Week 6 (Week of 3/1/04): Transforming debt relief policy through public pressure: The case of Jubilee 2000

            Elizabeth Donnelly, “Proclaiming Jubilee: The Debt and Structural Adjustment Network,” Chapter 8 in Sanjeev Khagram, James V. Riker, and Kathryn Sikkink, Restructuring World Politics: Transnational Social Movements, Networks, and Norms (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002).

            Bread for the World, Debt & Development Dossier, Issue #3, April 2000. Available electronically via: http://www.bread.org/institute/debt_and_development_project/dossier3.html

Josh Busby, “Listen! Pay Attention! Transnational Social Movements and the Diffusion of International Norms.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, 28-31 August 2003.

 

Week 7 (Week of 3/8/04):  Crafting a consensus on child rights: ILO 182 

Speaker: Dorianne Beyer, Advisory Board, Social Accountability International

            Sheena Crawford, The Worst Forms of Child Labor: A Guide to Understanding and using the new convention (London, UK: Department for International Development, Social Development Department, 2000). Available electronically via: http://www.dfid.gov.uk/

            Michael J. Dennis, “Current Developments: Newly Adopted Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child,” American Journal of International Law 94, No. 4 (2000): 789-796.

International Labour Organization, A future without child labor: Global report under the Follow-up to the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, 2002 (Geneva: ILO, 2002). Focus on Part II.

 

Week 8 (week of 3/15/04):  SPRING BREAK

 

 

 

 

Week 9 (week of 3/22/04) Trade and labor rights linkage: The debates 

            Sandra Polaski, Trade and Labor Standards: A Strategy for Developing Countries (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003). Available electronically via: http://www.ceip.org/files/pdf/Polaski_Trade_English.pdf

            Terry Collingsworth, The Alien Tort Claims Act: A Vital Tool for Preventing Corporations from Violating Fundamental Human Rights (Washington, DC: International Labor Rights Fund, April 2003). Available electronically via: http://www.laborrights.org/

Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Nicholas K. Mitrokostas, Awakening the Monster: The Alien Tort Statute of 1789 (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, July 2003). Available electronically via: http://www.iie.com/publications/chapters_preview/367/iie3667.pdf

 

ADVOCACY

Week 10 (week of 3/29/04): Social movement unionism – new form of human rights advocacy?

Speaker: Elizabeth Drake (AFL-CIO)

Margaret Levi, Organizing Power: The Prospects for an American Labor Movement,” Perspectives on Politics 1, No. 1 (March 2003): 45-68.

            Lowell Turner, Harry C. Katz, and Richard W. Hurd, Rekindling the Movement: Labor’s Quest for Relevance in the Twenty-First Century (Ithaca: ILR Press, 2001).

            Peter Evans, “Fighting Marginalization with Transnational Networks: Counter-Hegemonic Globalization,” Contemporary Sociology 29, No. 1 (January 2000): 230-241.

            Scott Martin, “Transnational Labor Rights Activism: Defining, Comparing, and Integrating a Disparate Field,” paper presented for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, 28-31 August 2003.

 

Week 11 (week of 4/5/05): Dilemmas of representation in human rights advocacy

Speaker: Holly Bartling, Director, Human Rights Advocates Training Program, Center for the Study of Human Rights

            Center for the Study of Human Rights, Capacity Building by Human Rights Organizations: Challenges and Strategies (New York: CSHR, September 2002). 

            Jonathan Fox, “Lessons from Mexico-US Civil Society Coalitions,” in Cross Border Diaologues: US-Mexico Social Movement Networking, edited by David Brooks and Jonathan Fox (La Jolla, CA: Center for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego, 2002).

Janice Duddy, “Should the recent call from the right for increased NGO accountability be cause for concern for the women’s movement,” Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID), Friday File, Issue 137, Friday, August 1, 2003, available electronically via: http://www.awid.org/fridayfile/

* Also: review website of NGO-Watch, an organization seeking to bring “clarity and accountability” to groups in the nongovernmental sector: http://www.ngowatch.org/

 

 

 

 

Week 12 (week of 4/12/04):  Cyber-networking: the power and challenges

Thomas P. Novak and Donna L. Hoffman, “Bridging the Digital Divide: The Impact of Race on Computer Access and Internet Use,” Working Paper, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University (February 2, 1998) available online via: http://elab.vanderbilt.edu/research/papers/html/manuscripts/race/science.html

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Human Development Report 2001: Making New Technologies Work for Human Development (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Introduction and Chapter 3 on “Managing the risks of technological change.”

            Elisabeth Friedman, “ICT and Gender Equality Advocacy in Latin America: Impacts of a New ‘Utility,” forthcoming Feminist Media Studies 3, No. 3 (November 2003).

Recommended: John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, editors, Networks and netwars and the future of terror, crime, and militancy (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2001). Available electronically via: http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1382/

 

Week 13 (week of 4/19/04): IN-CLASS PRESENTATIONS

 

Week 14 (week of 4/26/04): IN-CLASS PRESENTATIONS

 

Week 15 (week of 5/3/04): Final session and course evaluation.

 


 

 

BOOKS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE

Labyrinth Books, 536 West 112th Street (Tel: 212 865 1588)

 

John Arquilla and David Ronfeldt, editors, Networks and netwars and the future of terror, crime, and militancy (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2001).

 

Max Cameron, Robert Lawson, and Brian Thomas, editors, To Walk Without Fear: The Global Movement to Band Landmines (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).

 

Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Nicholas K. Mitrokostas, Awakening the Monster: The Alien Tort Statute of 1789 (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, July 2003).

 

Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics & Idolatry (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).

 

Martha Meijer, editor, Dealing with Human Rights: Asian and Western Views on the Value of Human Rights (Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2001).

 

Mahmood Monshipouri, Neil Engelhart, Andrew J. Nathan, Kavita Philip, editors. Constructing Human Rights in the Age of Globalization (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003).

 

Makau Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002).

 

Jerry Piasecki, Marie In the Shadow of the Lion: A Humanitarian Novel (New York: United Nations, 2001).

 

Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002).

 

Lowell Turner, Harry C. Katz, and Richard W. Hurd, Rekindling the Movement: Labor’s Quest for Relevance in the Twenty-First Century (Ithaca: ILR Press, 2001).