HUM RGTS IN THEORY& PRACTICE

Provides a broad overview of the rapidly expanding field of human rights. Lectures on the philosophical, historical, legal and institutional foundations are interspersed with weekly presentations by frontline advocates from the U.S. and overseas.

• TR 4:10 p.m.-5:25 p.m.
• Instructor: Widney Brown
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 3 points

INDEPENDENT STUDY

Independent Study in Human Rights.

• Instructor: Widney Brown
  CULPA: 4 Info
• Instructor: J.C. Salyer
  CULPA: 1 Info
• 1-4 points

INTL LAW & U.N. IN PRACTICE

Prerequisites: POLS UN1601 or HRTS UN3001 An equivalent course to POLS UN1601 or HRTS UN3001 may be used as a pre-requisite, with departmental permission. Examines the development of international law and the United Nations, their evolution in the Twentieth Century, and their role in world affairs today. Concepts and principles are illustrated through their application to contemporary human rights and humanitarian challenges, and with respect to other threats to international peace and security. The course consists primarily of presentation and discussion, drawing heavily on the practical application of theory to actual experiences and situations. For the Barnard Political Science major, this seminar counts as elective credit only. (Cross-listed by the Human Rights Program.)

• R 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Martin S Flaherty
  CULPA: 1 Wikipedia Info
• 4 points

Human Rights & Public Health: Advanced S

ADV HUMAN RTS & PUBLIC HE

As we face the triple threats of inequalities, climate change, and a pandemic, the dignity and well-being of many people are under attack or at imminent risk.  Exploring several specific issues through the lens of human rights principles and public health standards will provide students with a strong analytic framework for understanding the challenges of and potential for systemic change to address these threats.  Specifically, we will be looking at disparate health impacts and how to understand what drives the disparities; intellectual property laws and how they apply during a global crisis; the double-edged sword of digital technology particularly as it applies to health surveillance; the strengths and weaknesses of a biomedical model dominating the public health discourse; and, the politization of health policy. Specifically, we will explore systems of oppression that drive inequalities and lead to disparate health outcomes; the lack of a transnational accountability framework to address both climate change and the rights of those most impacted by it; and how a corporate-driven intellectual property regime has put access to essential medicines, including vaccines, beyond the reach of people living in poverty.  Finally, looking at reports ripped from the headlines, we will look at how the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown open the door to widespread digital surveillance with few safeguards to protect privacy rights or to address the biases in many of the algorithms driving this technology.

• T 12:10 p.m.-2 p.m.
• Instructor: Widney Brown
  CULPA: 4 Info
• 4 points

Seeking Sanctuary in New York City

In a renewed age of anti-immigrant fervor, the last few years have seen attention focused on people seeking asylum – the process under international law by which people fleeing persecution can seek protection in a country not of their citizenship. New York has become a particular flashpoint with a large influx of asylum seekers, most of them from Latin America. Often, they have arrived on buses sent here by southern governors intending to make the border “problem” that of a so-called “sanctuary city.” How has New York responded? And how does this fit into the city’s long history of refuge? 

This course will offer students an introduction to the theory, ethics, and history of the idea of international protection. We will look specifically at how Latin American citizens have engaged with the US asylum system over time and how this engagement has changed the shape of US immigration laws. We will study the origins of the ideas of international protection, who is understood to qualify and why, how the system has changed over time, and what these developments mean for a broader understanding of human rights across borders. We will also take a critical look at asylum, examine ideas of deservingness and innocence and their intersection with categories of race, class and gender, and question what it means for certain people to be constructed as victims and others to be seen as not eligible – or worthy – of protection.

This is an engaged pedagogy course. The class will be organized around a close collaboration with a NY legal organization that has taken on the work of representing many asylum seekers in the city. Students will learn the complexities of US asylum law and will work collectively to use this knowledge, while developing their research skills, to put together reports to be used in active asylum cases.

• WF 10:10 a.m.-noon
• Instructor: Amelia Frank-Vitale
  Info
• 5 points

Power, Politics, and Procedure in US Imm

Power in Immigration Cour

Immigration court has been described as akin to trying death penalty cases in traffic court. With a backlog of over two million cases and counting, judges have impossibly full dockets, cases get continued at the last minute, and many people are left to their own devices to try to make sense of what their options might be to stay in the United States. A key part of this confusion is because immigration court – though the stakes of decisions are as high as can be – is civil, not criminal. Given this, individuals are not guaranteed the right to a court appointed attorney. New York City, however, has been on the forefront of trying to remedy at least this part of the equation, piloting a unique program to guarantee representation to New Yorkers facing removal proceedings. While having access to an attorney can make a meaningful difference, immigration judges still enjoy wide discretion in how they decide a given case.

The core idea of this course is that there is a real utility to observing immigration court, both for research and for contributing to social change.  This course will center around a practice of court watching in immigration court in order to develop a scholarly analysis of systems, institutions, and the functioning (or not) of the law. At the same time, this court watching practice will also involve the systematic collection of qualitative data that may be directly useful to immigration attorneys and their clients in their perpetual effort to hold immigration courts accountable and create as fair as possible of a playing field that upholds the basic principles of human rights. To that end, in this class we will study how to conduct courtroom observations, drawing from different methodological approaches and findings, study the idea, history, and critiques of immigration law from across disciplines, and conduct extensive, in depth, immigration court watching. We will partner with local legal services organizations in order to sharpen our sense of what kinds of data is useful for their specific legal interventions and to ensure that the data that we do collect and interpret can become part of a larger project to hold courts accountable.

This course will offer students a unique opportunity to see how rigorous social science research and analysis can have real impacts in the world beyond the classroom, and how those two realms, through collaboration, can mutually contribute to advancing social change. They will learn first-hand how the careful application of qualitative

• WF 2:10 p.m.-4 p.m.
• Instructor: Amelia Frank-Vitale
  Info
• 5 points