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Specialization in Human Rights

For this specialization we advise you to register in the Major Human Rights, Gender and Conflict Studies: Social Justice Perspectives (SJP)

Human Rights are recognized by governments and civic organizations as integral to human development and positive social change. This specialization explores the deeper ramifications of how economic, social, civil, political and cultural rights can be protected at local, national, regional and international levels and through multi-layered strategies. Socio-legal approaches are combined with other approaches and practice-based use of case studies.

On this page we share background information on what used to be called the "HDS" specialization, including details of the teaching staff and course offering. Please also check out the Human Rights blog, which includes course-related readings, videos and information about research and other projects that the teaching staff have been involved with.

 

Teaching staff

Karin ArtsKarin Arts, Professor of International Law and Development

Prof. dr. Karin Arts joined the ISS twenty years ago and has developed a very broad experience in teaching and researching human rights and social justice issues. In 2010 she was awarded a professorial chair by the Board of Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is a member of the International Committee on International Law and Sustainable Development of the International Law Association (ILA) as well as the Advisory Council on International Relations of the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She has advised governments, the United Nations and NGOs and has published widely on human rights and in particular the rights of children as well as the European Union's policies on development co-operation.

For more information, see: www.iss.nl/arts.

Jeff HandmakerJeff Handmaker, Senior Lecturer in Law, Human Rights and Development

Dr. Jeff Handmaker joined the ISS in February 2007. He studied law in England and was called to the English bar in 1995. After working as a lawyer and human rights advocate in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa, The Middle East and Europe, he obtained a PhD in the sociology of law at Utrecht University with a thesis on "Advocating for Accountability: Civic-State Interactions to Protect Refugees in South Africa", published by Intersentia (2009). He has trained government officials, police officers, military personnel, lawyers, NGOs and journalists and has advised governments, the United Nations and civil society organisations in the development sector, with particular experience in West and Southern Africa and Palestine. Since 1999, he has published scholarly work, in academic and other journals, as well as four books and one special issue of the South African Journal of Human Rights.

For more information, see: www.iss.nl/handmaker.

Helen HintjensHelen Hintjens, Senior Lecturer in Development and Social Justice

Dr. Helen Hintjens has a background in teaching, research and advocacy especially in the field of International Development, where her specific interests include: genocide and post-genocide Rwandan politics; conflict and peace in the Great Lakes regions; media studies, especially radio and visual arts; non-surveillance and undocumented people in Europe and networks of pro-asylum advocates.

For more information, see: www.iss.nl/hintjens.

Rachel KurianRachel Kurian, Senior Lecturer in International Labour Economics

Dr. Rachel Kurian is a Senior Lecturer in International Labour Economics at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague. She has degrees in Mathematics and Economics, and has studied at the Universities of Madras, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, University of Cambridge, UK and University of Amsterdam where she completed her Ph.D in 1989. Dr. Kurian’s interests lie in the arena of migration, human rights, poverty, gender, trade unions, and labour (including child labour) in the context of economic restructuring – a focus reflected in her publications and current curriculum. Her wide-ranging interest and expertise is corroborated by extensive field experience in Asia (Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and South Korea), Latin America (Colombia, Peru, Chile and Ecuador), the Caribbean (Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados) and Africa (Mauritius, Tanzania).

For more information, see: www.iss.nl/kurian.

Human Rights Courses

Core Human Rights Courses on offer in 2011-12

As of September 2012, what was formerly known as "HDS" (Human Rights, Development and Social Justice) will form part of a larger Major programme known as "SJP" (Human Rights, Conflict and Gender Studies: Social Justice Perspectives). The course offering is also likely to change.

The following provides an overview of some of the human rights courses that will likely continue to be on offer.

4118: Critical Perspectives on Economic Globalisation

Diego Rivera: The Flower CarrierThe course analyses the power and political bases that underscore the dominant and more critical perspectives on economic globalisation. It maps out and analyses the key institutions, as well as the positive and negative characteristics and social consequences of economic globalisation. It exposes the participants to current international discourses that have challenged some of the social consequences of economic globalisation, including those associated with human rights, human development and human security, their gendered implications, and the inter-linkages of these three normative frameworks. This core course lays the foundation for important theoretical concerns and practical responses regarding economic globalization that are relevant to the four specializations and which will be developed further in the subsequent modules of the four specializations.

For more information about this, and other courses, please consult the MA Calendar.

 

4216: Theorising on Human Rights, Development and Social Justice

African Woman (origin unknown)The main objectives of this course are to assist participants in sharpening their knowledge of different theoretical approaches to human rights, development and social justice and to enhance participants’ abilities to apply theoretical ideas to concrete problems, situations or questions. Possible theoretical links between issues in the realms of human rights, development and social justice will be explored, and relevant theoretical notions such as citizenship, social exclusion and rights based approaches will be analyzed in theory and applied to actual case examples.

For more information about this, and other courses, please consult the MA Calendar.

 

4303: Realising Rights - Principles and Practices of Social Justice

Nelson Mandela (origin unknown)This course introduces students to critical explanations of how human rights and social justice can be realised in practice. Understanding how human rights can be made real and achieve greater social justice in the life of ordinary people is the core of the course. Whether one is speaking of the situation in the USA, Palestine-Israel, the African Great Lakes region or in relation to refugee rights or the right to food or land – human rights violations, and the means used to challenge these violations, or prevent them from occurring, are never straightforward. They are always highly contextualised. Improvements in human rights norms and values are needed, and yet by themselves are not enough to secure positive social change towards greater social justice and meaningful rights-protection. Realistic expectations, or a consciousness of strategic choices, are important, especially combined with the will by states and other stakeholders to do what is possible in a given context to defend and promote inter-connected sets of rights. The course curriculum focuses on the rights considered most relevant to poor people in their own settings.

For more information about this, and other courses, please consult the MA Calendar.


For those interested in digging deeper ...

Socio-legal critiques (general)

Human rights and civic advocacy

Human rights as politics

  • Stolen Youth, on the administrative detention of Palestinian children by Israel. Documentary produced by Defence for Children International (Palestine Section), 2004 (18 min)

 

  • Nelson Mandela, "Prepared to Die", Extract from testimony at his trial in Pretoria, South Africa in 1964 (1 min) -- See also: full text of Mandela's statement.