Human Rights

Human rights play an important role in our modern globalised world and are recognised as integral to social change. They affect individuals and societies alike and raise a number of issues that are neither simple nor clear. This programme introduces students to human rights related discourses in a social science context. The universal and cultural specific dimensions of human rights will be explored through exploration of human rights in relation to social and cultural diversity and their local and global contexts, with an emphasis on Africa. Students will learn to apply various human rights perspectives to selected human rights issues. This programme examines the theoretical foundations of Human Rights from a social science & constitutional/legal erspective, and aims to guide the student through the exploration and analysis of a selection of issues and aspects of human rights and the economic, social, cultural and political contexts in which they arise. The primary goal of this programme is to examine human rights from social science perspectives in order to develop an insight and understanding of how human rights, human rights practices and human rights institutions are socially created and recreated by human beings.