Human Rights Syllabi: Research Seminar on Global Gay Rights Issues

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POLS 397: Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice

Jack Donnelly
Fall 2002
This graduate-level, interdisciplinary introduction to international human rights emphasizes the
interaction of theory and practice in contemporary international society. I will assume no previous
formal study of human rights (although I realize that some students will have a fairly substantial
background). I expect the class will include students with a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and
interests. But I will also assume that you can get up to speed pretty quickly, and that you are willing to
deal with professional literature from politics, philosophy, and law.
As I am teaching here at UConn for only a single semester, I have adopted the unusual strategy of
organizing the course around my own work. More particularly, it is organized around the second edition
of my major book, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice (abbreviated UHR2e below), which
will be available in galley proofs.
Readings for each week follow. I will begin each class by asking "Where do you want to start?" and we
will proceed form there in a completely free-form discussion format. Therefore, preparation and
participation are essential. Please, read carefully and think about the material before you come to class.
Note that there is a lot of reading. If you can't do all the reading for a given week, you will usually do
best to start at the top of the list and work your way down (unless you have particular interests that
suggest otherwise).
Grades will be based on a paper of your choice. Class participation (quality not quantity) may also be
factored into the final grade.
1. AUGUST 29: INTRODUCTION
I will be out of the country. Please try to do the following background reading (which focuses on
international human rights norms as expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the most
important document in the international human rights regime) before taking on next week's more
substantial reading.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
International Human Rights Covenants
Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights (2nd ed.), Introduction, ch. 1.
R. J. Vincent, "The Idea of Rights in International Ethics," in Terry Nardin and David R. Mapel (eds.),
Traditions of International Ethics.
Familiarize yourself with the High Commissioner for Human Rights' website http://www.unhchr.ch/
(you can find the Universal Declaration [in numerous languages] and the Covenants here).
Recommended:
Johannes Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Origins, Drafting, and Intent.
Jack Donnelly and Rhoda E. Howard, "Assessing National Human Rights Performance: A Theoretical
Framework," Human Rights Quarterly 10 (May 1988): 214-48.
James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (http://spot.colorado.edu/~nickelj/msohr-welcome.htm),
ch. 1.
Susan Waltz, "Universalizing Human Rights: The Role of Small States in the Construction of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 23 (February 2001): 44-72.
Asbjorn Eide and Theresa Swinehart (eds.), The Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A
Commentary.

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Stephen P. Marks, "From the 'Single Confused Page' to the 'Decalogue for Five Billion Persons': The
Roots of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the French Revolution," Human Rights
Quarterly 20 (August 1998):
2. SEPTEMBER 5: RIGHTS
We begin with the most basic conceptual questions of the nature of rights and how they are similar to
and different from other forms of social practices.
UHR2e, 1.1-2.
Joel Feinberg, "The Nature and Value of Rights," in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Philosophy of Human
Rights.
Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, "Some Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning,"
Yale Law Journal 23 (November 1913): 16-59. (Skip pp. 16-29, but read pp. 30ff. carefully [although
without much attention to the extensive legal examples]. This is very dry but important reading.)
Ronald Dworkin, "Taking Rights Seriously," in Taking Rights Seriously.
James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (http://spot.colorado.edu/~nickelj/msohr-welcome.htm),
ch. 2.
Recommended:
Peter Jones, Rights.
Brian Orend, Human Rights: Concept and Context, ch. 1.
Tara Smith, Moral Rights and Political Freedom, ch. 1, 2.
Wesley Newcomb Hohfeld, "Fundamental Legal Conceptions as Applied in Judicial Reasoning," Yale
Law Journal 26 (June 1917): 710-770.
Stanley I. Benn, "Rights," The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967).
3. SEPTEMBER 12: THE CONCEPT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
How are human rights different from other kinds of rights? How do they function? What is their source?
UHR2e, 1.3-4, ch. 2.
Henry Shue, Basic Rights, ch. 1, 2 (emphasizing pp. 13-22, 29-40, 51-64) and the final chapter in the
2nd edition.
James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (http://spot.colorado.edu/~nickelj/msohr-welcome.htm) ,
ch. 3, 5.
Thomas Pogge, "How Should Human Rights Be Conceived?" in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Philosophy
of Human Rights.
Martha Nussbaum, "Capabilities and Human Rights," in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Philosophy of
Human Rights.
Steven Lukes, "Five Fables about Human Rights," in Stephen Shute and Susan Hurley (eds.), On Human
Rights: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures.
Michael Freeman, "The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 16
(August 1994): 491-514.
H. L. A. Hart, "Are There Any Natural Rights?," in Hayden.
Alan Gewirth, "The Basis and Content of Human Rights," in Gewirth, Human Rights: Essays on
Justification and Application.
Recommended:
Jerome J. Shestack, "The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 20
(May 1998): 200-234.
Maurice Cranston, What are Human Rights?.
R. J. Vincent, Human Rights and International Relations, ch. 1.
Michael J. Perry, The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries, ch. 2.

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Brian Orend, Human Rights: Concept and Context, ch. 2-6.

Christian Bay, "Self-respect as a Human Right: Thoughts on the Dialectics of Wants and Needs in the
Struggle for Human Community," Human Rights Quarterly 4 (February 1982): 53-75.
Tara Smith, Moral Rights and Political Freedom, ch. 3-5.
Hugo Adam Bedau, "Human Rights and Foreign Assistance Programs," in Peter G. Brown and Douglas
Maclean, Human Rights and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Morton E. Winston (ed.), The Philosophy of Human Rights
4. SEPTEMBER 19: OVERLAPPING CONSENSUS AND THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION
This week we look at substantive theories of human rights that recognize multiple foundations within an
essentially "liberal" framework.
UHR2e, ch. 3.
John Rawls, The Law of Peoples.
Anthony J. Langlois, The Politics of Justice and Human Rights, ch. 4.
Recommended:
Mervyn Frost, Ethics in International Affairs: A Constitutive Theory, ch. 4.
Cass R. Sundstein, Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict.
Ronald Dworkin, "Liberalism," in A Matter of Principle.
Jurgen Habermas, "Remarks on Legitimation through Human Rights," Philosophy and Social Criticism
24 (1998): 157-171.
Jurgen Habermas, "Reconciliation Through the Public Use of Reason: Remarks on John Rawls' Political
Liberalism," Journal of Philosophy 92 (March 1995): .
Michael Walzer, Thick and Thin: Moral Argument at Home and Abroad.
Jean-Francois Lyotard, "The Other's Rights," in Stephen Shute and Susan Hurley, On Human Rights:
The Oxford Amnesty Lectures.
5. SEPTEMBER 26: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES
This week's readings focus on skeptical arguments from a variety of perspectives (but bracketing issues
of cultural relativism, which are considered for two weeks next month).
Chris Brown, "Universal Human Rights: A Critique," in Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler, Human
Rights in Global Politics.
Richard Rorty, "Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality," in Hayden.
Jacques Derrida, "Wears and Tears," in Hayden.
Makau Mutua, "The Ideology of Human Rights," Virginia Journal of International Law 36 (Spring
1996): 589-657.
Chandra Muzaffar, "From Human Rights to Human Dignity," in Peter Van Ness, Debating Human
Rights.
Anthony J. Langlois, The Politics of Justice and Human Rights, ch. 5
Recommended:
Michael Ignatieff, Human Rights as Politics and Idolatry.
C. B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism.
Mary Ann Glendon, Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse.
Ian Shapiro, The Evolution of Rights in Liberal Theory.
Arthur J. Dyck, Rethinking Rights and Responsibilities: The Moral Bonds of Community.
Henry B. Veatch, Human Rights: Fact or Fancy?
Tibor R. Machan, Individuals and their Rights.

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6. OCTOBER 3: THE END OF HUMAN RIGHTS

Costas Douzinas' The End of Human Rights is arguably the most interesting broad philosophical
discussion of human rights to appear in recent years. It also can serve as a way to pull together some of
the themes already discussed and put them into a broader historical and philosophical context. We will
read just this book for this week.
7. OCTOBER 10: CULTURAL RELATIVISM (I)
The reading for this week falls into four distinct clusters. Read all the pieces marked with a * and then a
few from each section. Make sure that you get to the material in D (it is, in my view, the most
important material for the week). I am well aware that there is too much reading for this week, but ...
A. General Relativist Arguments
* Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab, "Human Rights: A Western Construct with Limited
Applicability," in Pollis and Schwab, Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives.
* Adamantia Pollis, "Liberal, Socialist, and Third World Perspectives on Human Rights," in Peter
Schwab and Adamantia Pollis, eds., Toward a Human Rights Framework OR Hector Gros Espiell, "The
Evolving Concept of Human Rights: Western, Socialist and Third World Approaches," in B. G.
Ramcharan, Human Rights: Thirty Years After the Universal Declaration.
Alison Dundes Renteln, "The Unanswered Challenge of Relativism and the Consequences for Human
Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 7 (November 1985): 514-40.
Makau Mutua, "Savages, Victims, and Saviors: The Metaphor of Human Rights," Harvard International
Law Journal 42 (Winter 2001): 201-245.
B. Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights
Adbul Aziz Said, "Human Rights in Islamic Perspectives," in Pollis and Schwab OR "Precept and
Practice of Human Rights in Islam," Universal Human Rights [Human Rights Quarterly] 1 (1979): 6380.
Fouad Zakaria, "Human Rights in the Arab World: The Islamic Context," in UNESCO, Philosophical
Foundations of Human Rights.
Majid Khadduri, "Human Rights in Islam," The Annals 243 (January 1946): 77-81.
Dunstan M. Wai, Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa," in Pollis and Schwab.
Josiah A. M. Cobbah,. "African Values and the Human Rights Debate: An African Perspective." Human
Rights Quarterly 9 (August 1987): .
Timothy Fernyhough, "Human Rights and Precolonial Africa," in Ronald Cohen, Goran Hyden, and
Winston P. Nagan, Human Rights and Governance in Africa.
Legesse, Asmarom (1980). "Human Rights in African Political Culture," in Kenneth W. Thompson, The
Moral Imperatives of Human Rights: A World Survey.
Yougindra Khushalani, "Human Rights in Asia and Africa," Human Rights Law Journal 4 (no. 4 1983):
403-442.
Ralph Buultjens, "Human Rights in Indian Political Culture," in Thompson.
Surya P. Subedi, "Are the Principles of Human Rights 'Western' Ideas? An Analysis of the 'Asian'
Concept of Human Rights from the Perspectives of Hinduism," California Western International Law
Journal 30 (Fall 1999): 45-69.
James C. Hsiung, "Human Rights in an East Asian Perspective," in Hsiung, Human Rights in an East
Asian Perspective.
Lo Chung-Sho, "Human Rights in the Chinese Tradition," in UNESCO, Human Rights: Comments and
Interpretations.
Roger Ames, "Continuing the Conversation on Chinese Human Rights," Ethics and International Affairs
11 (1997): 177-205.
C. Critiques of the Non-Western Conceptions Literature
* UHR2e, ch. 5

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* Ann-Belinda S. Preis, "Human Rights as Cultural Practice: An Anthropological Critique," Human

Rights Quarterly 18 (May 1996): 286-315.
Rhoda E. Howard. "Cultural Absolutism and the Nostalgia for Community," Human Rights Quarterly 15
(May 1993): 315-338.
Bassem Tibi, "Islamic Law/Shari'a, Human Rights, Universal Morality of International Relations,"
Human Rights Quarterly 16 (May 1994): 277-299.
Ann Elizabeth Mayer, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics.
Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, "Religious Minorities under Islamic Law and the Limits of Cultural
Relativism," Human Rights Quarterly 9 (February 1987): 1-18.
R. Afshari, "An Essay on Islamic Cultural Relativism in the Discourse of Human Rights," Human
Rights Quarterly 16 (May 1994): 235-276.
Matthew A. Ritter, "Human Rights: The Universalist Controversy. A Response to Are the Principles of
Human Rights 'Western' Ideas?" California Western International Law Journal 30 (Fall 1999): 71-90.
Kana Mitra, "Human Rights in Hinduism," Journal of Ecumenical Studies 19 (Summer 1982): 77-84.
D. Relative or Particularistic Universalism
* UHR2e, ch. 4, 6.
* Andrew J. Nathan, "Universalism: A Particularistic Account," in Lynda Bell, Andrew J. Nathan, and
Ilan Peleg, Negotiating Culture and Human Rights.
* Abdullahi A. An Na'im, "Towards a Cross-Cultural Approach to Defining International Human Rights
Standards," in An Na'im, Human Rights in Cross-Cultural Perspectives.
Onuma Yasuaki, "Toward an Intercivililzational Approach to Human Rights," in Joanne Bauer and
Daniel Bell, The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights.
Charles Taylor, "Conditions of an Unforced Consensus on Human Rights," in Bauer and Bell.
Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, "The Cultural Mediation of Human Rights: The Al-Arqam Case in Malaysia,"
in Bauer and Bell.
Michael G. Barnhart, "Getting Beyond Cross-Talk: Why Persisting Disagreements Are Philosophically
Nonfatal," in Bell, Nathan, and Peleg.
Bhikhu Parekh, "Non-ethnocentric Universalism," in Tim Dunne and Nicholas J. Wheeler, Human
Rights in Global Politics.
Norani Othman, "Grounding Human Rights Arguments in Non-Western Culture: Shari'a and the
Citizenship Rights of Women in a Modern Islamic State," in Bauer and Bell.
Recommended:
Diane Orentlichter, "Relativism and Religion," in Michael Ignatieff (ed. Amy Gutmann), Human Rights
as Politics and Idolatry.
James Nickel, Making Sense of Human Rights (http://spot.colorado.edu/~nickelj/msohr-welcome.htm),
ch. 4.
Michael J. Perry, The Idea of Human Rights: Four Inquiries, ch. 3.
Thomas M. Franck, "Are Human Rights Universal?" Foreign Affairs 80 (January-February 2001).
8. OCTOBER 17: CULTURAL RELATIVISM (II): THE "ASIAN VALUES" DEBATE
In the 1970s and 1980s, issues of relativism were most often discussed in the context of "three worlds"
of human rights. In the 1990s, a vigorous debate emerged around the assertion of distinctive "Asian
values" and associated Asian approaches to human rights.
UHR2e, ch. 7
Bilahari Kausikan, "Asia's Different Standard," Foreign Policy (Fall 1993): 24-41.
Aryeh Neier, "Asia's Unacceptable Standard," Foreign Policy (Fall 1993): 42-51.
Fareed Zakaria, "Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew," Foreign Affairs 73
(March/April 1994): 109-126.
Kishore Mahbubani, "An Asian Perspective on Human Rights and Freedom of the Press," in Peter Van

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Ness, Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays from the United States and Asia..
Christopher Lingle, "The Propaganda Way," Foreign Affairs (May-June 1995): 193-196.
Xiaorong Li, "'Asian Values' and the Universality of Human Rights," in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The
Philosophy of Human Rights.
Anthony J. Langlois, The Politics of Justice and Human Rights, ch. 1, 2.
Daniel A. Bell, "The East Asian Challenge to Human Rights: Reflections on an East-West Dialogue,"
Human Rights Quarterly 18 (August 1966): 641-667.
Joseph Chan, "A Confucian Perspective on Human Rights," in Joanne Bauer and Daniel Bell, The East
Asian Challenge for Human Rights.
Recommended:
Stephen C. Angle, Human Rights and Chinese Thought: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry.
Peter Van Ness, Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays from the United States and Asia.
Inoue Tatsuo, "Liberal Democracy and Asian Orientalism," in Bauer and Bell.
Lynda S. Bell, "Who Produces Asian Identity? Discourses, Discrimination, and Chinese Peasant Women
in the Quest for Human Rights," in Lynda Bell, Andrew J. Nathan, and Ilan Peleg, Negotiating Culture
and Human Rights.
Daniel A. Bell, East Meet West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia.
Wm. Theodore de Bary, Asian Values and Human Rights: A Confucian Communitarian Perspective.
Human Rights in China (1991, Information Office of the State Council).
Andrew J. Nathan, "Sources of Chinese Rights Thinking," in R. Randle Edwards, Louis Henkin and
Andrew J. Nathan, Human Rights in Contemporary China.
Michael C. Davis (ed.), Human Rights and Chinese Values.
9. OCTOBER 24: INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS REGIMES
This week we turn to multilateral implementation mechanisms. The aim is to obtain an overview of the
various forms of multilateral activity on behalf of internationally recognized human rights.
UHR2e, ch. 8
Hurst Hannum, Guide to International Human Rights Practice (Third Edition).
Recommended:
Harold Hongju Koh, "How is International Human Rights Law Enforced?," Indiana Law Journal 74
(1999): 1397-1417.
Howard Tolley Jr., The UN Commission on Human Rights.
Philip Alston (ed.), The United Nations and Human Rights: A Critical Appraisal.
Philip Alston, "The UN's Human Rights Record: From San Francisco to Vienna and Beyond," Human
Rights Quarterly 16 (May 1994): 375-390.
David P. Forsythe. "The United Nations and Human Rights at Fifty: An Incremental but Incomplete
Revolution," Global Governance 1 (1995): 297-318.
Thomas Risse, Steven C. Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink (eds.), The Power of Human Rights: International
Norms and Domestic Change.
(For further reading on particular regional and functional regimes, see the notes in UHR2e ch. 8.)
10. OCTOBER 31: TREATY-REPORTING SYSTEMS
The leading multilateral implementation mechanism is reports by states to independent committees of
experts. This week we will look in some detail at the operation of such committees, with a special focus
on The Human Rights Committee. This is another week where there is way to much assigned reading -by far. Read the assigned chapters in Boerefijn as carefully as you can bring yourself to do. (It is dry but
important and informative reading.) Skim a couple state reports and read closely a few concluding
observations of the Committee. Then read chapters 1, 2, and 23 of Alston and Crawford. Finally, read

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selectively, on the basis of your interests and your own sense of importance, in the Alston and Crawford
and Bayefsky readers.
Ineke Boerefijn, The Reporting Procedure under the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ch. 1, 2, 916.
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/hrc/hrcs.htm Choose a couple reports from some recent sessions.
For example, in the 76th session, the Egyptian report is illuminating as much for what it avoids
addressing as what it says. (If you do look at this one, be sure to get to Part III and especially pp. 130ff.)
In the 75th session, New Zealand and Vietnam provide a nice contrast.
Philip Alston and James Crawford (eds.), The Future of UN Human Rights Treaty Monitoring.
Anne F. Bayefsky, The UN Human Rights Treaty System in the 21st Century.
Recommended:
Dominic McGoldrick, The Human Rights Committee: Its Role in the Development of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Kitty Arambulo, Strengthening the Supervision of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights.
Sara Joseph, Jenny Schultz, and Melissa Castan, The International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights: Cases, Materials, and Commentary.
11. NOVEMBER 7: HUMAN RIGHTS AND FOREIGN POLICY
We turn this week to the bilateral politics of human rights.
UHR2e, ch. 9, 10
David P. Forsythe (ed.), Human Rights in Comparative Foreign Policy. (Read selectively, based on your
interests, but be sure to include the chapters on the Netherlands and India.)
Peter Baehr, "Problems of Aid Conditionality: The Netherlands and Indonesia," Third World Quarterly
18 (June 1997): 363-376 OR Nico G. Schulte Nordholt, "Aid Conditionality: The Case of DutchIndonesian Relationships," Olav Stokke, Aid and Political Conditionality.
Recommended:
Jan Egeland, Impotent Superpower, Potent Small State.
Robert Matthews and Cranford Pratt (eds.), Human Rights in Canadian Foreign Policy.
Stanley Hoffmann, "Reaching for the Most Difficult: Human Rights as a Foreign Policy Goal,"
Daedalus 112 (Fall 1983): 19-49.
David P. Forsythe (ed.), The United States and Human Rights: Looking Inward and Outward.
Hans J. Morgenthau, Human Rights and Foreign Policy (1979, Council on Religion and International
Affairs).
Evan Luard, Human Rights and Foreign Policy.
Kathryn Sikkink, "The Power of Principled Ideas," in Judith Goldstein and Robert O. Keohane (eds.),
Ideas and Foreign Policy.
Clair Apodaca and Michael Stohl, "United States Human Rights Policy and Foreign Assistance."
International Studies Quarterly 43 (March 1999): 185-198.
Arthur J. Schlesinger, Jr., "Human Rights and the American Tradition," Foreign Affairs 1979, pp. 503526.
R. J. Vincent (ed.), Foreign Policy and Human Rights.
12. NOVEMBER 14: TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVISTS
The role of nongovernmental organizations has been central to the functioning and impact of the
international human rights movement. This week's required reading examines human rights (and
environmental) activists in the context of the idea of transnational advocacy networks.

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Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International
Politics, ch.
Jackie Smith, Ron Pagnuco, and George A. Lopez , "Globalizing Human Rights: The Work of
Transnational Human Rights NGOs in the 1990s." Human Rights Quarterly 20 (May 1998).
Stefanie Grant, "The NGO Role: Implementing, Expanding Protection and Monitoring the Monitors," in
Anne F. Bayefsky, The UN Human Rights Treaty System in the 21st Century.
William Korey, "Human Rights NGOs: The Power of Persuasion," Ethics and International Affairs 13
(1999): 151-174.
Recommended:
Susan Burgerman, Moral Victories: How Activists Provoke Multilateral Action.
Lowell W. Livezey, "US Religious Organizations and the International Human Rights Movement,"
Human Rights Quarterly 11 (February 1989): 14-81.
Alison Brysk, "From Above and Below: Social Movements, the International System, and Human
Rights in Argentina," Comparative Political Studies 26 (October 1993).
Felice D. Gaer, "Reality-Check: Human Rights NGOs Confront Governments in the United Nations," in
Leon Gordenker and Thomas G. Weiss, NGOs, the United Nations, and Global Governance.
Helena Cook, "Amnesty International and the United Nations," in Peter Willetts, The Conscience of the
World. The Influence of Non-Governmental Organizations in the UN System.
Kenneth A. Rodman, "'Think Globally, Punish Locally': Nonstate Actors, Multinational Corporations,
and Human Rights Sanctions," Ethics and International Affairs 12 (1998): 19-42.
Andrew Clapham, "Creating the High Commissioner for Human Rights: The Outside Story," European
Journal of International Law 5 (no. 4 1994): 556-568.
William Korey, NGOs and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
C. P. Cohen, "The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in the Drafting of the Convention on the
Rights of the Child," Human Rights Quarterly 12 (1990): 137-147.
Margo Picken, "Ethical Foreign Policies and Human Rights: Dilemmas for Non-Governmental
Organisations," in Karen E. Smith and Margot Light, Ethics and Foreign Policy.
Claude E. Welch Jr., Protecting Human Rights in Africa: Roles and Strategies of Non-Governmental
Organizations.
13. NOVEMBER 21: CASE STUDY: POST-TIANANMEN CHINA
International reactions to the 1989 Tiananmen massacre provide a useful case study for considering the
interaction of bilateral, multilateral, and transnational human rights activities, and the interaction of
human rights with other international political and foreign policy objectives.
Rosemary Foot, Rights Beyond Borders: The Global Community and the Struggle over Human Rights
in China.
Recommended:
James Mann, About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to
Clinton.
Roberta Cohen, "People's Republic of China: The Human Rights Exception," Human Rights Quarterly
November 1987.
John F. Cooper, "Peking's Post-Tiananmen Foreign Policy: The Human Rights Factor," Issues and
Studies, October 1994, pp. 49-73.
Ann Kent, China, The United Nations, and Human Rights.
Elizabeth Economy and Michel Oksenberg (eds.), China Joins the World.
Alastair Iain Johnston and Robert S. Ross (eds.), Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging
Power.
K. V. Kesavan, "Japan and the Tiananmen Square Incident," Asian Survey, July 1990, pp. 669-68.

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David Lampton, "America's China Policy in the Age of the Finance Minister: Clinton Ends Linkage,"
China Quarterly, September 1994, pp. 597-621.
Andrew J. Nathan, "Influencing Human Rights in China," in James R. Lilley and Wendell L. Willkie II,
Beyond MFN: Trade with China and American Interests.
14. DECEMBER 5: GROUP RIGHTS
One of the more controversial theoretical and practical issues in recent years has been the status of
groups and the adequacy of the strong individualism of international human rights norms.
UHR2e, ch. 12.
Marlies Galenkamp, "Collective Rights." SIM Special Report No. 16, Utrecht, 1995.
Jack Donnelly, "Third Generation Rights," in C. Brolmann et al. (eds.), Peoples and Minorities in
International Law.
William F. Felice, "The Case for Collective Human Rights: The Reality of Group Suffering," Ethics and
International Affairs 10 (1996): 47-61.
James Crawford, "The Rights of Peoples: 'Peoples' or 'Governments'," in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The
Philosophy of Human Rights.
Will Kymlicka, "The Good, the Bad and the Intolerable: Minority Group Rights," in Patrick Hayden
(ed.), The Philosophy of Human Rights.
James W. Nickel, "Group Agency and Group Rights," in Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka, Ethnicity and
Group Rights.
Abdullahi A. An-Na'im, "Human Rights and the Challenge of Relevance: The Case of Collective
Rights," in Monique Castermans-Holleman, Fried von Hoof, and Jacqueline Smith. The Role of the
Nation-State in the 21st Century: Human Rights, International Organisations and Foreign Policy.
Recommended:
Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka (eds.), Ethnicity and Group Rights.
Will Kymlicka (ed.), The Rights of Minority Cultures.
Jennifer Jackson Preece, National Minorities and the European Nation-State System.
Stephen P. Marks, "Emerging Human Rights: A New Generation for the 1980s?" Rutgers Law Review
33 (Winter 1981): 435-452.
Rhoda E. Howard, Human Rights and the Search for Community.
Peter Cumper and Steven Wheatley, Minority Rights in the "New" Europe.
Juha Raikka (ed.), Do We Need Minority Rights? Conceptual Issues.
Kristin Henrard, Devising an Adequate System of Minority Protection: Individual Human Rights,
Minority Rights and the Right to Self-Determination.
15. DECEMBER 12: HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION
Perhaps the most striking difference between Cold War era and post-Cold War international human
rights practice has been in the treatment of genocide. This week we explore the question of the
development of an enforceable anti-genocide norm and associated claims for a right to humanitarian
intervention.
UHR2e, ch. 14.
Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, ch. 6.
Terry Nardin, "The Moral Basis of Humanitarian Intervention," Ethics and International Affairs 16 (no.
1, 2002): 57-70.
The Responsibility to Protect, Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty http://www.iciss-ciise.gc.ca/report-e.asp
Jarat Chopra and Thomas G. Weiss, "Sovereignty under Siege: From Intervention to Humanitarian
Space," in Gene M. Lyons and Michael Mastanduno, Beyond Westphalia? State Sovereignty and

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International Intervention.
Nicholas J. Wheeler, Saving Strangers: Humanitarian Intervention and International Society (read the
Introduction, ch. 1 and the Conclusion carefully, and the cases selectively).
Robert Jackson, The Global Covenant, ch. 10 (having first skimmed ch. 5, 7).
Recommended:
Sean D. Murphy, Humanitarian Intervention: The United Nations in an Evolving World Order.
Albrecht Schnabel and Ramesh Thakur (eds.), Kosovo and the Challenge of Humanitarian Intervention:
Selective Indignation, Collective Action, and International Citizenship.
Independent International Commission on Kosovo, The Kosovo Report: Conflict, International
Response, Lessons Learned [http://www.kosovocommission.org/index.html].
Michael Joseph Smith, "Humanitarian Intervention: An Overview of the Ethical Issues," Ethics and
International Affairs 12 (1998): 63-79 [reprinted in Patrick Hayden (ed.), The Philosophy of Human
Rights].
Thomas M. Franck and Nigel S. Rodley, "After Bangladesh: The Law of Humanitarian Intervention by
Military Force," American Journal of International Law 67 (April 1973): 275-305.
Ian Brownlie, "Thoughts on Kind-Hearted Gunmen," in Richard B. Lillich, Humanitarian Intervention
and the United Nations.
Lori Fisler Damrosch, "Changing Conceptions of Intervention in International Law," in Laura W. Reed
and Carl Kaysen, Emerging Norms of Justified Intervention.
Julie Mertus, "Reconsidering the Legality of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from Kosovo,"
William and Mary Law Review 41 (2000): 1743-1787.
Mervyn Frost, "The Ethics of Humanitarian Intervention: Protecting Civilians to Make Democratic
Citizenship Possible," in Karen E. Smith and Margot Light, Ethics and Foreign Policy.
Antonio Cassese, "Ex Iniuria Ius Oritur: Are We Moving Towards International Legitimation of
Forcible Humanitarian Countermeasures in the World Community?" European Journal of International
Law 10 (no. 1 1999) [http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol10/No1/com.html]
Dino Kritsiotis, "Reappraising Policy Objections to Humanitarian Intervention," Michigan Journal of
International Law 19 (Summer 1998).
Lea Brilmayer, "What's the Matter with Selective Intervention?" Arizona Law Review 37 (Winter
1995): 955-970.
Thomas M. Franck, "Lessons of Kosovo," American Journal of International Law 93 (October 1999):
857-860.
Louis Henkin, "Kosovo and the Law of 'Humanitarian Intervention'," American Journal of International
Law 93 (October 1999): 824-828.
Jonathan I. Charney, "Anticipatory Humanitarian Intervention," American Journal of International Law
93 (October 1999): 834-841.
Charles R. Beitz, "Nonintervention and Communal Integrity," Philosophy and Public Affairs 9 (Summer
1980): 385-391.
11
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