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Elective: Mobilizing Rights and Social Justice

Vak
2024-2025

Admission requirements

This course is open to students enrolled in the Master Law and Society.

Description

This course aims to provide students with the tools to think and act strategically in trying to promote human rights. Under what conditions can human rights activism be effective? When does it make more sense to bring a case to court and when are other forms of advocacy more likely to bring about the results we’re looking for? And if one decides in favour of litigation, how do you actually go about it?

Building on insights students have acquired during the course Making Human Rights Work we will engage more specifically with the literature on legal mobilization and what we can learn from it with regard to human rights promotion. We will discuss other forms of advocacy and their pros and cons and look at case studies to apply such insights to contemporary human rights issues, such as FGM and dispossession.

During the second part of the course the focus will move to the practice of human rights litigation, how to conduct such litigation but also what kind of actions outside of court can support it, for it to have maximum effect. Through case studies, we will explore diverse forms of strategic litigation adopted in different contexts and fora, on a range of human rights issues, to identify areas of progress and impact, as well as pitfalls and limitations. Particular focus is on factors that may have informed the litigation process and its impact, including strategies adopted by diverse actors. The ultimate aim is to make students more conscious of the possibilities and limitations of human rights approaches to real life problems and to provide them with the tools to engage in such promotion in a meaningful way.

Course objectives

At the end of this course, students are able to:

  • Assess the advantages and disadvantages of framing a real life problem as a human rights violation

  • Make an assessment of a viable course of action with regard to addressing a particular human rights problem

  • Explain under what conditions it makes sense to engage in litigation to further human rights

  • Devise a course of action to engage in strategic and effective human rights litigation and related action

Timetable

Check MyTimetable.

Mode of instruction

Lectures

  • Number of (2 hour) lectures: 5

  • Names of lecturers: Adriaan Bedner, Helen Duffy

  • Required preparation by students: reading assigned materials

Seminars

  • Number of (2 hour) seminars: 5

  • Names of instructors: Adriaan Bedner, Helen Duffy

  • Required preparation by students: reading assigned materials.

Active student participation is essential and reading the required texts in advance of the relevant sessions is vital, so that participants can contribute to class discussions.

Assessment method

Examination form(s)

Students will write a 2500 words final essay on a particular case or issue of their choice, which they need to link with the theories and the readings discussed during the course.

Submission procedures

To be announced.

Reading list

Obligatory course materials

Syllabus

Registration

Registration for courses and exams takes place via MyStudymap. If you do not have access to MyStudymap (guest students), look here (under the Law-tab) for more information on the registration procedure in your situation.

Contact

  • Coordinator: Adriaan Bedner

  • Work address: KOG (Steenschuur 25 Leiden)

  • Telephone number: 071 – 527 7260

  • Email: a.w.bedner@law.leidenuniv.nl

Institution/division

  • Institute: The Institute for the Interdisciplinary Study of the Law

  • Department: Van Vollenhoven Institute for Law, Governance & Society

  • Room number secretary: KOG (Steenschuur 25 Leiden), room B1.14

  • Opening hours: Monday till Friday 10:00 - 15:00h

  • Telephone number secretary: +31 (0)71 527 7260

  • Email: SecretariatVVI@LAW.leidenuniv.nl

Remarks