Università Roma Tre

Over the past few years, a number of key international organizations have expressed their concern over, on one side, the progressive erosion of even the most basic human rights together with, on the other, the strengthening in many States of authoritarian regimes and ‘souverainist’ governments, an intensified discrediting of multilateral cooperation, and the questioning, when not the explicit denunciation, of existing international obligations. Scholars and reliable media sources have alluded to an “end” of human rights: these would be ‘inadequate’ to sway the reality of the contemporary globalised world. Furthermore, the idea that, in the past decades, the human rights movement has essentially “failed” is increasingly making inroads. However, what is meant by this ‘crisis’ of human rights? Is it actual and irreversible? And what is, or should be, the role of international law on the matter?

The course aims at a) equipping the students with the knowledge of international law necessary to b) analyse critically the ongoing legal debate around the alleged ‘crisis’ of human rights (and its political, economic and ethical aspects), in light of existing international rules, and their most recent developments and future prospects.

Besides a general list of recommended readings (see below), specific bibliographies will be provided for each class.

1. Carlo Focarelli, ‘Neoliberismo globale e persona umana’, in Carlo Focarelli, Costruttivismo giuridico e giurisdizioni internazionali (Milano, Kluwer/Cedam, 2019), cap. III, pp. 265-300.
2. Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 2017/18: The State of the World’s Human Rights (2018)
3. Human Rights Watch, World Report 2019 (Events of 2018)
4. World Justice Project, WJP Rule of Law Index 2017–2018
4.1. ‘“A crisis for human rights”: new index reveals global fall in basic justice’, The Guardian (31 January 2018)
5. Freedom House: https://freedomhouse.org/
5.1. ‘Freedom in the World 2018’
5.2. Various special reports on freedomhouse.org (e.g. on far-right extremism in Ukraine, or changes to legal system in Poland)
6. Samuel Moyn, Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (Harvard University Press 2018)
6.1. ---, ‘How the Human Rights Movement Failed’, The New York Times (23 April 2018)
7. Kathryn Sikkink, Evidence for Hope: Making Human Rights Work in the 21st Century (Princeton University Press 2017)
7.1. ---, ‘Rethinking the notion of a human rights crisis’, OpenGlobalRights (31 July 2018)
8. David Rieff, ‘The End of Human Rights?’, Foreign Policy (9 April 2018)
9. Ingrid Wuerth, ‘A Global Downturn in Human Rights: Implications for International Law’, Lawfare (27 June 2016)
10. Nicola Perugini and Neve Gordon, ‘The human rights crisis: a problem of perception?’, OpenDemocracy (24 June 2015)
11. Rachel Krys, ‘In the UK, public discourse undermines support for human rights’, OpenDemocracy (20 April 2015)
12. Eric Posner, The Twilight of Human Rights Law (OUP 2014)
12.1. ---, ‘The twilight of human rights law’, OpenGlobalRights (25 November 2014)
13. Stephen Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights (Cornell University Press, 2013)
14. Stefano Rodotà, ‘L’età dei diritti al crepuscolo?’ in Michelangelo Bovero (a cura di), Il Futuro di Norberto Bobbio (Editori Laterza, 2011) pp. 62-75
15. David Kennedy, ‘The International Human Rights Movement: Part of the Problem?’ (2002) 15 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 101
16. Costas Douzinas, The End of Human Rights: Critical Thought at the Turn of the Century (Hart Publishing, 2000)