Overview

This unit introduces students to the international framework for human rights. Beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the unit examines responses to genocide, inequality and campaigns for civil rights and self-determination. Through an historical analysis of case studies the unit reflects on the limitations in human rights law and the “human condition” more generally.

Requisites

Prerequisites

50 credit points

Equivalent units
HIS30012 History, Politics and Human Rights
Teaching periods
Location
Start and end dates
Last self-enrolment date
Census date
Last withdraw without fail date
Results released date
Semester 2
Location
Hawthorn
Start and end dates
03-August-2026
01-November-2026
Last self-enrolment date
16-August-2026
Census date
01-September-2026
Last withdraw without fail date
22-September-2026
Results released date
08-December-2026

Unit learning outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will be able to:

  1. Analyse and explain the framework for the development of human rights including the various covenants, conventions and declarations formulated through the United Nations
  2. Examine key struggles for human rights in the twentieth century
  3. Locate, interrogate, and integrate primary and secondary source documents in the development of an argument
  4. Critically analyse key historiographical debates in human rights literature and examine the limitations of human rights declarations

Teaching methods

Hawthorn

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Online
Lecture		1.00 12 weeks 12
On-campus
Class		2.00 12 weeks 24
Specified Activities
Various		5.83 12 weeks 70
Unspecified Activities
Independent Learning		4.00 11 weeks 44
TOTAL150

Swinburne Online

Type Hours per week Number of weeks Total (number of hours)
Live Online
Class		1.00 4 weeks 4
Online
Directed Online Learning and Independent Learning		18.25 8 weeks 146
TOTAL150

Assessment

Type Task Weighting ULO's
EssayIndividual 40% 1,2,3,4 
QuizIndividual 20% 1,2,4 
ReportIndividual 40% 1,2,3,4 

Content

  • Rights versus Justice
  • The Trials at Nuremburg and Tokyo
  • International Law versus the Sovereign State: The Declaration
  • Displaced Persons and Rights of Refugees
  • ‘The dove flies east’: Human Rights as ideology
  • Human Rights as Self Determination
  • The rights of man and woman
  • Humanitarian Intervention to R2P
  • Prisons and Punishment: a case study in human rights
  • The Just War
  • Transitional and Restorative Justice
  • Rights versus Justice Revisited

Study resources

Reading materials

A list of reading materials and/or required textbooks will be available in the Unit Outline on Canvas.