Course Section | Columbia Law School

Section Description Provided by Instructor

This weekly seminar will explore the linkages between global poverty, human rights and development from a historical, theoretical, institutional and policy-making perspective. Its departure point is the emergence of a recent "human rights and development" trend, both in academia and policy, as a result of the combined failure of development economics and the human rights movement to effectively address the challenge of global poverty and inequality.

A number of questions have both shaped and risen from the emergence of this field: is development too often conducive to human rights violations, or is it a means to realize human rights? Can the realization of human rights help generate more, and better, development? Is poverty a violation of human rights? Is development a human right? If so, what are the consequences of framing poverty or development in human rights terms? What are the consequences of developmentalizing human rights? The seminar will seek to answer some of these questions by offering a multidisciplinary lens to engage with the normative foundations, historical policy formations, ideological forces and institutional frameworks at play in the human rights & development field, and by introducing some of the key policy debates in the field.

The seminar is articulated in three parts. The first part draws on foundational readings from law, development economics, political science, moral philosophy and social anthropology to introduce historically and normatively situated approaches to development and human rights. This inquiry will start with the post-World War II emergence of both movements, and will highlight the major historical stages of the human rights-development relationship, up to the current rights-based approach to human development. The second part of the seminar will explore some of the key themes and current policy debates in the field, as they play out respectively at the level of an international financial institution, national level development strategies, and the private sector. The selected themes include: an in-depth appraisal of the place of human rights and rights-based approaches to development at the World Bank; an analysis of recent legal and judicial "rule of law" policy reforms and their relationship to human rights; and a foray into some of the human rights dimensions of globalization, through an analysis of the labor and human rights dimension of transnational corporate activity in the developing world. The third part focuses on how social and economic rights and second generation human rights to food, health, housing and a decent livelihood can operate in the context of developing countries. This section of the seminar will dynamically bring the first two together, by involving students in workshop-format sessions around case studies. These case studies will place students at the ground level of advocacy and policy-making around socio-economic rights and development strategies, and provide a concrete opportunity to explore some of the practical implications of our inquiry into the human rights/development interface.

The seminar is designed for students interested in social and economic development, global poverty, inequality, globalization and human rights issues. Prior or concurrent course in human rights and/or international law is required, although other background can qualify upon discussion with instructor (e.g. academic or professional background in international/development studies).