Intensive Course: Current Challenges to Human Rights Law (LAW756H1S)

Note: The add/drop date for this course is Monday, January 8 at 10:00 PM.

Course Location: Please see the "Intensive Course Schedule" under Schedules and Timetables (http://www.law.utoronto.ca/academic-programs/schedules).

Note: Attendance at intensive courses is mandatory for the duration of the course.  

Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in 1948, the expansion of human rights law has been impressive: from civil and political rights to social rights and women’s rights, to areas where collectivities and even transnational corporations are subject to the law of human rights.  International regimes of human rights protection have flourished, at the global level, as well as regionally, with the establishment of tribunals such as the European and Inter-American Courts of Human Rights.  But the development of human rights law also creates a pushback from nations, such as withdrawal from human rights treaties, or resistance against decisions by international human rights bodies.  

This course explores the law, theory, and practice of international human rights law, with the goal of providing students with an informed and critical perspective on some of the most pressing issues that human rights law faces today.  We will review the history and evolution of the international human rights project, the expansion of human rights norms, the use of human rights law in domestic advocacy, and the challenges that current world events, such as climate justice and racial reckoning, pose to such project.