POST GRADUATE DIPLOMA IN SOCIAL JUSTICE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Post Graduate Diploma in Social Justice and Human Rights

Course overview

A critical awareness of the human rights discourse is encouraged through the human rights and social justice course. The function of contemporary human rights institutions for both state and non-state actors is covered throughout the course. The course also examines the philosophical, historical, and political evolution of the concepts of social justice and human rights that form the basis of modern institutions. The course investigates concepts about human rights from multidisciplinary, multicultural, and multireligious perspectives as well as looks at the roles that social movements, grassroots campaigns, and other actors have played in the development of human rights ideas and practises in recognition of the significance of a globalised understanding of human rights. Participants get the chance to apply their learning through the course’s use of both theoretical and practical learning techniques.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

By the end of this course, participants will:

Understand what human rights and social justice are, where they came from and why we have them.
Develop an understanding of the challenges to human rights and social justice from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Understand why these bodies of law exist, how they interact, what each term means and how they are applied.
Identify ways in which human rights learning can increase the effectiveness of their human rights work.
Understand the roles, functions and responsibilities of various actors, organisations and institutions in international human rights and humanitarian law.
BENEFITS:
At the end of the course participants will understand how human rights can be used as a practical tool to support them in their work. The course can be used to establish or strengthen existing human rights policies and practices both in the public and private sector.

module 1

.Introduction to Human Rights Understanding
.Human rights and human security
.History and philosophy of human rights
.Concept and nature of human rights
.Human rights standards at the universal level
.Human rights and civil society
.Implementation of universal human rights instrument

.Assignment 1

Module 2

The Fundamentals of Human Rights Systems
• Rights/entitlements

• Obligations / commitments

• Accountability mechanisms

• Assignment 2

Module 3

• Fundamental Human Rights Principles Sources of human rights

• Customary international law General practice

• Opinion luris Ius cogens

• Human rights as the guarantor of human dignity

• Implementing human rights

• The requirement of legality

• The rule of law

• The right to an effective remedy

• Retrospectivity

Assignment 3

Module 4

•  human rights of women

• Gender and the widespread misconception of human rights of women

• Women and poverty

• Women and violence

• Implementation and monitoring of human rights of women

       Assignment 4

Module 5

•  The Rights of the Child

• The struggle to protect the rights of the child

• Child rights and human/child security

• The nature and content of the human rights of children

• Principal concepts of the convention on the rights of the child

• Intercultural perspectives and controversial issues

• Implementation and monitoring of the human rights of the child

  Assignment 5

 

Module 6 

• Human Rights Standards and Security

• The right to life

• The absolute prohibition of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, and punishment

• The rule of law and the rights to a fair trial

  Assignment 6

Module 7

• Human Rights and the Guarantee of Democratic Pluralism

• Freedom of expression

• Implementation and monitoring of freedom of expression

• Freedom of association and the right to peaceful assembly

  Assignment 7

Module 8

• The General Application of Human Rights: How Human Rights Work

• Civil and political rights

• Restricting rights

• Economic and social rights

  Assignment 8

Final Assessment