300203 Global Social Rights and Local Conflicts. From Conceptual Debates to Activism (S) (WiSe 2016/2017)

The course will link elements of the conceptual debate on global social rights with documents written in the realms of the practice of human rights. Debates on the universality of human rights, on the alleged exclusion and new powers produced by the contemporary human rights system, on work rights based activism will be included in the course. To provide a base for these discussions, we will look at particular conflicts in which human rights discourses play an important role.
We will work with critical text and document analysis, focussing primarily on NGO reports and classical conflict analysis via those. Which forms of violence characterize the conflict? which forms of conflict (economic, social, political) do we encounter and on which levels is the conflict being played out? which social forces and agents are conflict parties, who is claiming rights here? which consequences does the conflict have, which forms of conflict management have been employed?
The course won't give answers to all these questions but aims to connect the theoretical debate with empirical cases to open up ways to approach the complex topic. This allows us to look at conflicts via a NGO lens, from a perspective oriented towards the praxis of human rights, in order to link theoretical reflection to practical knowledge. The central question during the course will be what we can learn about the relation between the global economy, social rights and rights activism by analyzing local conflict dynamics.

Bibliography

ECCHR et al. (2014): Holding Companies Accountable: Lessons from transnational human rights litigation, https://www.ecchr.eu/en/our_work/business-and-human-rights. html?file=tl_files/Dokumente/Publikationen/Booklet_HoldingCompaniesAccountable.pdf.

Nyamu-Musembi, Celestine /Cornwall, Andrea (2004): What is the “rights-based approach” all about? Perspectives from international development agencies (IDS Brighton Working Paper 234), https://www.ids.ac.uk/files/dmfile/Wp234.pdf

Oehrlein, Brigitte (2010): Global Perspectives or the Right to have Rights. The idea of Global Social Rights. Policy Paper, Berlin: RLS