A new approach to human rights and social justice, you will study the concepts and law underpinning human rights, development, and legal empowerment. You will also employ a wide range of skills, methods and techniques required to work in domestic and international social justice.
The interdisciplinary modules available to you reflect the range of skills often required by resource pressed third sector organisations, and will ensure that you can demonstrate to future employers the range of problem-solving skills and specialist knowledge so valued in this sector.
The course is fully online distance learning and is part-time over two years, running over three semesters. You will complete three core modules in semesters 1, 2, and 3 and then an optional fourth module in the first semester of the second year, before progressing onto your dissertation in semesters 2 and 3 of year 2.
Semester 1 Year 1
Regulation and Compliance in a Globalised World
This module considers the challenges and limits of governing human activity in an interconnected world. You will look at the regulation of local and transnational social and economic relations and the forms of power developing in response to contemporary governance issues. You will study a range of regulatory areas and subject specific case studies to give you a broad and comprehensive understanding of the relationship between rights and regulation. This module also focuses on providing you with a sound basis of legal reasoning and problem-solving skills through a new and integrated course of skills development and consolidation.
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Semester 2 Year 1
Legal Empowerment and Social Justice
A module which addresses the ways in which legal empowerment relates to social justice, looking at the limits of law and role of law in achieving social justice. The module examines the broad range of initiatives that constitute legal empowerment in the various fields of social justice and the importance of engaging civil society and community-based organisations. You examine the interplay between national and international social justice initiatives and consider rights, development and interventionism from a critical perspective.
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Semester 3 Year 1
Methods and Application of Human Rights and Development Practices
This module focuses on the development of the key techniques and practitioner skills required in social justice and legal empowerment. The module is structured around case studies on thematic areas within international social justice which are selected with two primary purposes: 1) to build upon legal knowledge and advanced legal skills accrued in modules one and two; and 2) to analyse the institutions and techniques used in facilitating legal empowerment of individuals and groups, so to develop and consolidate your range of legal empowerment techniques and problem solving skills.
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Semester 1 Year 2
The optional module will reflect your particular area of interest or specialism and can be selected from:
International Human Rights Law
This module explores a deeper understanding of human rights, the rule of law, and democracy, as the problematic foundation for interpretation and application of human rights law. In this module, you will acquire the analytic tools necessary to understand and replicate the methods and legal techniques used to argue a violation of international human rights law and a familiarity with the major debates and controversies surrounding the interpretation of international human rights law and its impact at the domestic and international level.
You will also develop a critical understanding of the multi dimensional characteristics of human rights interpretation, involving institutional politics, socio-economic claims and competing visions of justice.
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International Political Economy
International Political Economy (IPE) is not an 'economics' module. This module covers a wide range of subjects including the role of international organisations, as well as states, in global governance; poverty, dependence, and development; productive and reproductive labour; labour markets and globalisation; rising inequality in the 'developed' world, and more. You will analyse specific case studies to look at how people are affected by global power dynamics in the current global political economy, and make links with the study of transnational relationships across various actors.
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Treatment of Vulnerable Groups
This module focuses on areas of law that make provision for care of vulnerable groups, including detained patients elderly people and children. In this regard the module covers the duties and responsibilities of the local social services authorities and the rights of patients, the elderly and children.
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Climate change - law, impact, adaptation and mitigation
Semesters 2 and 3 Year 2
Dissertation
