Comparative Human Rights
The course involves a study of human rights drawing on legal materials primarily (though not exclusively) from the United Kingdom, the United States, the Commonwealth and Europe. The course considers the meaning of particular human rights and their significance in theory and in practice, and the approaches taken by the legal institutions designed to protect them at the national and European regional levels, including those of the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Union. A number of specific substantive issues (most notably, freedom of speech and protection from discrimination) are studied in depth to illustrate the complex interplay between theory, legal concepts and procedure, and between legal and non-legal sources of protection.