Required texts
Ishay, Micheline R., The History of Human Rights: From Ancient Times to the Globalization Era (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008)
Choose two of these four debate topics and give the three strongest arguments for and against. You may draw on any sources you wish, including readings, but I am most interested in your demonstrated capacity to make a case, including for a point of view you may not yourself hold.
Your entire paper – the pro and con sections for both of the questions you choose – should aim for a length of no more than 1500 words, or approximately six double spaced pages.
1. “Hate speech,” which is aimed at a particular ethnicity, religion or gender, should be protected in most circumstances by U.S. and international law.
2. The death penalty is warranted for the most horrific crimes and should be permissible under U.S. and international law.
3. Non-citizens should have the right to cast votes in elections of the countries in which they are resident.
4. While the state should not engage in discriminatory acts against women or gay people, this should not extend to the rights of families and religious groups, whose cultural and religious practices should be respected.
Additional readings
Diving deeper into the “universality” of human rights
Critiques of human rights: from the left and from the right
Readings: Ishay, pp. 273-279
Moyn, Samuel, “How the Human Rights Movement Failed,” New York Times, April 23, 2018
Discussion with Jamal Greene on “How Rights Go Wrong”, Columbia Law School
“Human Rights Law and the Erosion of Politics,” Noel Malcolm, The New Criterion, January 2016
Freedom of speech: U.S. legal standards and debates
Case study: Do neo-Nazis have the right to march in a neighborhood of concentration camp survivors?
Readings:
Notable U.S. free speech cases, the American Library Association
Freedom of Speech and the Press, Geoffrey Stone and Eugene Volokh, National Constitution Center
Reading: Listen to this podcast with Aryeh Neier and Emerson Sykes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-liberty/id1396174920?i=1000525833824
Free speech: international legal standards and debates
Case study: Hate radio and genocide in Rwanda
Readings:
Spend some time on these websites: Article 19 https://www.article19.org/ and Human Rights Watch (free speech section) https://www.hrw.org/topic/free-speech
Propaganda and Practice (excerpt from Human Rights Watch report)
Music To Kill By — Rwandan Genocide Survivors Remember RTLM (Al Jazeera article)
Criminal justice: policing, drug policy, mass incarceration, the death penalty
Readings
The rights of immigrants and refugees
Women’s rights
Case study, approaching “female genital mutilation”
Frontiers of human rights: artificial intelligence, environment and other issues