Human Rights Unit

Examiner´s comments

2023-12-21T09:26:48+02:00

A very strong response to the question at hand although one that, ultimately, falls just short of achieving the highest marks. The candidate has neatly scrutinized some of the reasons why human rights might be unenforceable. He or she then followed this up with a relatively nuanced, if underdeveloped, argument that human rights treaties and covenants might still be of some value and use to vulnerable populations (for example, in a normative sense at least, or as a reference point for such populations in any effort to draw attention to human rights violations). Again, the real-world examples provided as support are good and well explored. However, the response as a whole lacks the critical thinking and reflection required to achieve the top markband. Nevertheless, a very good essay.

Human Rights Unit Syllabus

2018-03-01T16:49:25+02:00

This unit focuses on the nature and practice of human rights. Debates surrounding human rights are examined.

Key concepts: human rights, justice, liberty, equality

Learning outcome	Prescribed content	Possible examples (Intended as a starting point only: for many topics, local and current examples will be more appropriate than the ones listed, and many more examples are listed than are expected to be covered during the course)
Nature and evolution of human rights	Definitions of human rights	Notions such as inalienability, universality, indivisibility, equality, justice, liberty
	The UN’s The Universal Declaration of Human Rights(1948)
	Developments in human rights over time and space	Human rights milestones, eg civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, gender rights, children’s rights, indigenous people’s rights, refugee rights Internationalization of human rights, eg universal jurisdiction, international humanitarian law
Codification, protection and monitoring of human rights	Human rights laws and treaties	Role of custom Human rights in constitutions, eg South Africa, Brazil International examples, eg International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, Rome Statute
	Protection and enforcement of human rights at different levels	National courts and police, International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Court (ICC), Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Cambodia Tribunal
	Monitoring human rights agreements	Ombudsmen, Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, monitoring elections
Practice of human rights	Claims on human rights	Labour rights, indigenous land claims, movements for gender equality, debates about same-sex marriage
Practice of human rights	Violations of human rights	Child soldiers, human trafficking, forced labour, forced relocation, denial of prisoners of war rights, violations of freedom of speech, violations in the name of prevention of terrorism, gender discrimination
Debates surrounding human rights: differing interpretations of justice, liberty and equality	Individual versus collective rights	Western, Asian and African conceptions; indigenous conceptions
	Universal rights versus cultural relativism	Sharia law, honour killings, hate crime laws, consumer rights
	Politicization of human rights	Use of human rights for political gain, humanitarian arguments, responsibility to protect, use of sanctions

Human Rights Links

2022-12-09T13:03:40+02:00

What is Communitarianism

Myanmar

Biden´s speech in Munich 2/ 2021

https://indicators.ohchr.org/

Education and Inclusion as a human right

Discussion questions on Terrorism

2020-05-07T10:53:43+03:00

􏰁 How can terrorism be distinguished from other forms of political violence?
􏰁 Is there such a thing as ‘state terrorism’?
􏰁 Are there any circumstances in which terrorism can be justified?
􏰁 Has the growing importance of religious motivation transformed the nature of terrorism?
􏰁 Did September 11 mark the emergence of a truly global form of terrorism?
􏰁 Is nuclear terrorism an ‘invented’ fear?
􏰁 Why is terrorism so rarely effective, and in what circumstances does it work?
􏰁 Are restrictions on liberty merely the lesser evil compared with the threat of terrorism?
􏰁 Why are military approaches to dealing with terrorism so often counter-productive?
􏰁 Should political deals ever be done with terrorists?

Power Points

2020-04-02T12:48:39+03:00

Human rights terms .pptx: Human rights terms .pptx
Peace & Conflict and International Law ( from slide 78 onwards): Peace & Conflict and International Law ( from slide 78 onwards)
Non-Governmental organizations and Human rights: Non-Governmental organizations and Human rights
Human rights- perspectives: Human rights- perspectives
Peace, conflict and Coronavirus.pptx: Peace, conflict and Coronavirus.pptx

Human Rights Unit Plan

2020-04-02T10:38:34+03:00

Purpose of the unit: To create an understanding of essential Human rights questions by going through the prescribed content for Human rights unit. The use of key concepts: Justice, Human rights, equality and liberty throughout the unit and the active investigation of current human rights issues. The aim is to develop an understanding of the sensitive nature of the human rights issues.
TOK connection: Ways of knowing and areas of knowlegde. What is the role of the emotions in Global Politics understanding?
Content and skills: The defined Human rights unit content will be learned by using several IB DP skills: Collaboration and research( group work on local NGOs on human rights issues), levels of analysis ( from community to global level; human rights violations locally and globally), social skills ( discussion thorughout the unit; in pairs, in groups and as a whole class). IB learner profile; caring-approach discussed regularily, connection to history: de-colonization, the Cold War. Practice essay and practice paper one on Human rights unit.
Overall plan of activities: Inquiry based learning: creating own reserach questions as a group: investigation of the human rights history and treaties, together with violations of agreements. Power-Unit as a basis for the understanding; the role of the non-state actors versus state-level. Theories´perspectives. Presentations, debate, snowball-method as a regular approaches on teaching and learning
Assessment: Formative and summative assessment. Peer feedback and teacher feedback throughout the unit, self-assessment as a part of the unit in Manage bac
Reflection: Motivation for this unit needs to be built up; the Power unit seemed to be very intresting for most of the students. You tube videos, Ted Talks useful in that