International Human Rights Law

HRGE Concentration Registration Priority.
This course introduces the legal frameworks, institutions, and advocacy strategies that underpin the international human rights system. With a practitioner’s lens, students will explore civil, political, economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights through treaties, customary law, and jurisprudence. Emphasis is placed on understanding where and how the law offers avenues for redress, and the evolving role of human rights advocacy in confronting modern challenges, including corporate accountability, gender discrimination, and climate justice.

Students will examine the structure and operation of key international and regional human rights mechanisms, the limits and opportunities of legal enforcement, and the relationship between international human rights law and international humanitarian law. The course integrates doctrinal learning with applied analysis through case studies, reflections, and simulations. 
Attendance in the first class session is mandatory.

• R 5:10 p.m.-7 p.m.
• T 1:10 p.m.-2:10 p.m.
• Instructor: Betsy Apple
  Info
• 3 points

Human Rights Advocacy in Practice

Human Rights Advocacy-Pra

This course equips students with both time-honored and cutting-edge advocacy skills to advance and protect human rights. Working on a current issue of their choice, students will develop a full advocacy strategy, defining goals, identifying targets, and selecting tactics grounded in rigorous research.

Using real-world case studies, the course explores how successful campaigns are built, including coalition-building, media engagement, and advocacy with UN bodies and national policymakers. Students will analyze what makes campaigns effective and how to adapt strategies across different political and institutional contexts. Students will also debate how human rights advocacy can meet the challenge of the rise of authoritarian power, closing civic space, dramatic reductions in funding, and human rights threats exacerbated by new technologies.

Throughout the semester, students will develop a toolkit of practical skills widely used in the human rights field. Assignments are designed to mirror professional advocacy work and include drafting advocacy letters, op-eds, and submissions to UN mechanisms or treaty bodies, as well as producing a final advocacy strategy.

The course includes a diverse set of guest speakers who have designed and led impactful advocacy and also features interactive simulations, giving students hands-on experience with engaging policymakers and communicating persuasively in high-stakes settings.

• F 10 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
• 3 points

Human Rights Research and Reporting

Human Rights Research & R

This course introduces students to the diverse methodologies, actors, and outputs involved in human rights research and reporting. Students will examine how governments, international organizations, NGOs, and journalists approach documentation and advocacy, while developing skills in interviewing, document analysis, data collection, and report writing. The course emphasizes ethical considerations, sociocultural awareness, and gender sensitivity throughout the research and reporting process.

Through case studies, simulations, and guest speakers, students will explore the strategic use of human rights documentation in advancing justice and accountability. Assignments include analytical reflections, response papers, and a final research report tailored to one of the core reporting perspectives studied.

• M 10 a.m.-11:50 a.m.
• Instructor: Andrew C Heinrich
  Info
• 3 points

Corporations and Human Rights

This course explores the evolving relationship between the private sector and human rights, with emphasis on legal frameworks, global standards, and practical approaches to corporate accountability. Students examine the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other key instruments that shape responsible business conduct across sectors.

Through case studies, role-playing exercises, and guest speakers, students analyze human rights risks and strategies in industries such as apparel, extractives, finance, and tech. Topics include human rights due diligence, corporate complicity, responsible disengagement, and litigation. The course equips students to assess business conduct, engage stakeholders, and advance rights-based accountability.

• W 5:10 p.m.-7 p.m.
• 3 points

Transnational LGBTQI+ Rights: Law, Polic

In May 2016, the UN Human Rights Council passed a highly contested resolution condemning discrimination and violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and establishing the first-ever Independent Expert on these issues. The protracted debate surrounding the resolution underscored how lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) rights remain among the most contentious topics in international human rights, law, and public policy.

Disputes over LGBTI rights are often framed as a clash between ‘human rights’ and ‘traditional values,’ highlighting a central challenge in advancing LGBTI claims: how to assert universal principles based on identities that are historically contingent and culturally shaped.

This course examines how LGBTI rights intersect with broader debates in areas such as bilateral relations and good governance, while also addressing challenges including legal recognition of same-sex partnerships and transgender identities. It explores the political uses of anti-LGBTI sentiment and investigates how LGBTI rights become flashpoints for deeper societal and political divisions.

Students will reflect on the complexities of advancing LGBTI rights in transnational contexts, engage with current scholarly debates, and develop the tools to address LGBTI rights across academic and professional domains. Contemporary developments and breaking news will be integrated into course discussions and assignments.

• M 3:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Jessica Stern
  Wikipedia h-index: 24 Info
• 1.5 points

Human Rights Simulation

Fall 2026 Course Dates: September 18 & October 2, 2026. 
This simulation course is a short two-day course designed to enable participating students to weigh and apply human rights principles, best practices, and standards to simulated human rights emergencies. The simulation exercise challenges student participants with issues facing human rights practitioners when responding to human rights crises and provides practice operating within the human rights system and devising innovative solutions to complex challenges.  Participants will evaluate data reports, assess relevant human rights tools and mechanisms, and propose interventions.  The simulation will include a day of simultaneous exercises, followed by another day of debriefing, evaluation, and identification of key challenges and lessons.

• F 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
• 1.5 points

Climate Change, Rights, and Development

Climate, Rights & Develop

This interdisciplinary course examines the complex intersections of climate science, human rights, and sustainable development. Students will first explore the fundamentals of Earth’s climate systems and core human rights frameworks. The course then analyzes how global climate disruption intersects with social vulnerability, equity, and justice. Topics include the science of climate variability, international climate governance, climate change litigation, migration and displacement, adaptation strategies, and sector-specific impacts on food, health, and livelihoods. Special attention is given to the experiences of frontline communities and small island states, as well as to policy responses grounded in climate justice.

• T 1:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• 3 points

Global Gender Equality Law and Policy

HRGE Concentration Registration Priority.
This course examines the global legal and policy frameworks aimed at promoting gender equality and advancing women’s rights. Drawing on international human rights instruments, national policies, and multilateral commitments, students will explore both the moral case and the strategic rationale for closing gender gaps. The course investigates how law, policy, and evidence intersect in shaping outcomes across development, health, economic growth, political participation, peace and security, climate resilience, and social protections. Students will also evaluate backlash to gender equality, the evolving discourse on gender rights and identity, and the implications of intersecting factors such as class, race, religion, and sexual orientation. Students will develop policy recommendations and deepen their understanding of global trends and debates surrounding gender justice.

• R 3:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Rachel Vogelstein
  Info
• 3 points

Mainstreaming Gender in Global Affairs

Mainstreaming Gender Glob

This course introduces students to gender mainstreaming, gender analysis, and intersectionality as both theoretical frameworks and applied methodologies in global affairs. Students will examine how gender perspectives are integrated into international policymaking, development programming, and institutional change across diverse fields, including education, public health, economic development, international finance, peace and security, and sustainability. The course draws on feminist theory, empirical research, and case studies to analyze how power, identity, and inequality shape policy design and outcomes. Students will engage with foundational concepts and tools used by multilateral institutions, governments, and civil society to promote gender equity and inclusion. Through workshops and mini-research assignments, students will gain experience with applied methods such as interviewing, text analysis, and gender-based program evaluation. Emphasis is placed on participatory learning and collaborative inquiry. This course equips students with the critical skills and practical knowledge necessary to engage in gender-responsive policy work in global and local contexts.

• W 3:10 p.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Kristy Kelly
  h-index: 3 Info
• 3 points

Rethinking Care: Towards Gender Equality

The organization of care is an essential element of any society – and a fundamental determinant of gender relations. Who can and who must care for whom, when and on what terms? The answers to these questions are often regarded as “private matters;” they are, in fact, reflected in, and impacted by, public policies. In recent years, care policies have been a matter of intense debate. Remarkable social innovations in some contexts have been accompanied by attempts to mold care in ways that bolster more traditional family arrangements in others. Focusing on the care of young children in reference to countries in Europe and Latin America as well as to the United States, this 7-week course will explore the assumptions on which care systems rest, their interactions with labor markets and family structures, their implications for gender equality and social stratification, and how more equitable solutions might be structured. Students will engage with a broad range of materials, including data sets, legal texts, policy briefs, case studies and theoretical analyses.

• W 1:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• Instructor: Yasmine Ergas
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 10 Info
• 1.5 points

Procreation and The Politics of Reproduc

Politics of Reproduction

All societies rest on the continuity of their populations. How – and if – that continuity is assured is deeply implicated in gender relations. Who has children? Rather, who can, who should, who must, have children – and who cannot or may not do so-- and at what conditions? Most fundamentally, who decides, how, with what consequences, for whom? Who, for example, is most at risk of dying of child-bearing, and where? Who can access ARTs and at what conditions? Have we moved past, or are we returning to, what was once thought of as compulsory motherhood, or is motherhood becoming more elusive, and for whom? Are similar trends affecting fathers? Or parents generally? And how do policies intended to encourage or discourage the physical reproduction differentiate among social groups, distinguishing, for example, on the basis of citizenship and residency, marital status, disability,race, ethnicity and class? Finally, what are the implications of assisted reproductive technologies – from IVF to womb transplants and gene editing – both for procreation and for how we understand sex and gender?

• R 1:10 p.m.-3 p.m.
• Instructor: Yasmine Ergas
  CULPA: 2 h-index: 10 Info
• 1.5 points

Gender, Conflict, and Peacebuilding

Gender, Conflict & Peaceb

Over 25 years ago, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and since then, it has adopted an additional 9 related resolutions. This agenda marks the first time in the UN’s 80-year history that women’s experiences, particularly their contributions to promoting peace and security in contexts of violent conflict, closed political spaces, and rising extremism, are acknowledged. It is also the first time that the need for women’s protection has been strongly noted. The resolution marks a clear watershed in the evolving efforts to promote human security as a normative framework for the international community. Although the primary focus is on women, the emerging discourse has drawn increasing attention to the need for gendered analysis – i.e., addressing the conditions/experiences of women and men with intersecting identities – in conflict and peacebuilding.

This intensive 2.5-day seminar will provide an overview of the evolving field of women, peace, and security. Drawing on empirical research and practice, the modules will address the following issues:

● Historical and geopolitical evolution and context in which the WPS field has arisen;

● Attaining UN Security Council Resolution 1325 and the expansion of the WPS policy agenda with attention to subsequent resolutions and key pillars of this agenda – notably women’s participation in peace and security, protection issues, peacekeeping and conflict prevention including conflict related sexual violence.

● Implications of ongoing conflicts, rising authoritarianism, and violent extremism on gender, peace and security issues.

● Gender analysis and the practical application of a gendered lens to key mediation, security, and peacebuilding processes.

● Experiences and lessons from women’s peace coalitions and women’s contributions to peacebuilding including countering/preventing violent extremism

● Efforts to prevent and address sexual violence in conflict.

● Women and peacekeeping, including issues of sexual exploitation and abuse.

• S 9 a.m.-5 p.m.
• Instructor: Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini
  Info
• 1.5 points