Law and Human Rights

Are human rights a 20th-century achievement under threat, or a living framework that must evolve to address AI surveillance, climate displacement, and platform power? This course offers a critical introduction to human rights law. You will explore the foundations: where rights come from, how they are classified (absolute, limited, qualified), and how courts balance competing rights through the proportionality test. Using the European Convention on Human Rights as the primary legal framework, complemented by comparisons with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the UN system, and selected national traditions, you will study landmark cases on freedom of expression, fair trial, privacy, and non-discrimination. The course then turns to the frontiers: digital rights (algorithmic decision-making, mass surveillance, content moderation), corporate human rights obligations (supply chain due diligence, ESG frameworks), and the rights of climate migrants. Throughout, you will engage with critical perspectives: the post-colonial critique of human rights universalism, the populist backlash against rights-based governance, and the tension between individual rights and collective welfare. You will have the opportunity to mobilise economic, psychological, and philosophical lenses alongside legal analysis. The final assessment is a structured debate on a live human rights controversy, preparing you to argue, not just analyse.