300099 On rights and needs: Human rights and their application in development and migration management (S) (WiSe 2016/2017)

Roughly about ten years ago, Rights- based approaches (RBA) started to gain importance in the aid and development world. Simply put, Rights based approaches bring in the notion of human rights into mainstream development discourse. They slowly started to replace formally prominent needs-based approaches to development in a range of different policy contexts. Today, not only NGOs but a range of international organisations promote rights based approaches to development.

In this course, we will look at the history and conceptual underpinnings of rights and needs based approaches to development cooperation. In order to do this, we will be examining at first human rights theory and contrast these concepts with different approaches to development theory.
We will then critically examine how rights and needs based approaches are conceptualised by NGOs, civil society movements, government and international organisations. Finally, we will be looking at examples of how RBAs can (or should) be applied practically in a range of different contexts.

The aims of this course are twofold: On the one hand, it provides a thorough understanding of concepts and theories related to human rights and development theory. On the other hand, it attempts to provide students with the opportunity to connect theoretical concepts to practical social problems by linking abstract human rights theory to concrete development issues.

Requirements for participation, required level

Please note that the first session of this course is taking place on a friday. In this session, the necessary requirements for participation in the class will be discussed. The sylabus for the course will be uploaded in advance in the Lernraum and I urge you to read it in advance of the first session in order to be able to ask about everything concerning course organisation you wish to know.