Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

POL2015 or equivalent module.

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

During the last fifty years, global justice and human rights have become major preoccupations of the international world. This module subjects the ideas of global justice and human rights to close analysis and examines the many issues to which they give rise, including the foundation and content of human rights, humanitarianism and global distributive justice, cosmopolitan democracy, and environmental justice.
The aims of this module are:

1. To analyse and examine the concepts of global justice and human rights
2. To analyse and examine the theories and debates that surround these concepts
3. To acquaint students with the most important literature on these subjects
4. To develop students' ability to think cogently, rigorously and critically about the ethical and political questions raised by ideas of global justice and human rights.

Outline Of Syllabus

Week 1 – Introduction to the themes of the course; administration
Week 2 – Universal Human Rights
Week 3 – Human Rights and global diversity
Week 4 – global distributive justice part 1 – poverty
Week 5 – global distributive justice part 2 – equality
Week 6 – climate justice and environmental sustainability
Week 7 - Rights, justice and the use of force 1: Just War
Week 8 - Rights, justice and the use of force 2: Humanitarian intervention
Week 9 - National and cosmopolitan identities
Week 10 – global governance part 1: formal institutions of global justice
Week 11 – global governance part 2: informal just governance

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

1.       Students will have gained a good analytical grasp of the concepts of global justice and human rights
2.       They will have gained a good critical understanding of the several theories and debates that surround these issues
3.       They will have become acquainted with most important literature on global justice and human rights

Intended Skill Outcomes

Students will have developed the skill to think cogently, rigorously and critically about concepts and arguments, particularly with reference to global justice and human rights

Students will have developed skills to communicate sophisticated ideas effectively, in terms of both written and oral communication.

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

A 2 hour (including break) seminar format will be used as the core to teaching and learning so that students can
•       give their own presentations on aspects of each major subject heading
•       engage in sophisticated critical discussion of complex themes, which is an essential part of this discipline
•       receive instruction, guidance, advice, and help in identifying issues and critical questions from the seminar leader


The pre-recorded materials for each week serve the function of lectures, but in the context of a course built fundamentally around longer and more discursive seminars. They offer an overview of key issues and themes that (i)aims to assist the students' engagement with sophisticated reading material (e.g. by identifying cleavages in the literature, with the set reading reflecting the different sides of those divisions) and (ii)advance students' basic understanding and framing of the issues to enable more sophisticated discussion in seminars. Covering the basics and background in this way also allows the lecturer to give students greater agenda-setting power in the seminars (e.g. with the pre-recorded material giving a general, basic level of understanding that can then be expanded on in the context of cases or examples chosen by the students).

Pre-recorded materials are reflected in the brief overview given by the lecturer at the start of each seminar.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

This mode of assessment will test students’ ability
-to address a major question in the area of global justice and human rights
-to draw upon and to engage critically with the relevant literature
-to show analytical rigour in their use of concepts and their examination of theories and arguments

A range of suggested questions will be provided, but students will also be invited to formulate their own questions in discussion with the module leader.

The difference in length between the research paper and a standard essay (i) raises the expectation in terms of depth of engagement with the topic and literature; (ii) places a greater emphasis on signposting and a strong internal structure.

Written (via canvas) and oral (at the start of the seminar, in weeks 5 and 8 of the course) guidance is given to students on the research paper and how to approach it.

The formative assessment prompts students to choose a topic, consider the content and structure of their long assignment, and receive feedback that will guide the preparation of the research paper itself, well before the final deadline.

General Notes

N/A