50064 - CIVIL LIBERTIES AND HUMAN RIGHTS
CLMG - M - IM - MM - AFC - CLAPI - CLEFIN-FINANCE - CLELI - ACME - DES-ESS - EMIT
Department of Legal Studies
Course taught in English
GIUSEPPE FRANCO FERRARI
Course Objectives
The main purpose of this course is to provide students with a deep comprehension of the main aspects of the protection of civil liberties and human rights at the national level, from both a comparative and an historical perspective, and at the international level.
Course Content Summary
First part
- Civil liberties, libertés publiques, libertades públicas: a history
- Civil liberties: a definition between positivism and ius natural
- The general categories
- Fundamental rights in comparative public law
- Law and rights: police power and the rule of law
- Right’s suspension, derogation, limitation in constitutional history
- Rights and the global order: after 9/11, the comparative experience
- Freedom of association in comparative law
- The right to privacy and its progeny
- The guarantees to the protection of civil liberties
Second part
- Human rights in international law; an historical perspective
- The different ‘generations’ of human rights
- Are human rights truly universal?
- The role of political bodies of international organizations
- The mechanisms for the protection of human rights at the universal level
- The regional courts for the protection of human rights, in particular the European Court of Human Rights
- Human rights in armed conflicts
- The criminal repression of serious violations of human rights in international law
Detailed Description of Assessment Methods
The final examination will be a written exam: two questions for each part of the course.
The final mark will be based on the average of the two parts of the written exam.
Students who choose not to attend the class will take a written exam on the whole of materials and texts mentioned above.
Textbooks
Part I:
Assignments are indicated in the syllabus for each lecture (the section materials include also a number of suggested-non mandatory readings), plus further materials to be provided for the preparation of the seminars and the case studies.
Part II:
C. Krause and M. Scheinin (eds), International Protection of Human Rights:
A Textbook (chapters 1-7, 9, 0, 14 and 17) plus further materials to be provided for the preparation of the seminars and the case studies.