DEVELOPMENT AND HUMAN RIGHTS: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GLOBALISED WORLD – DYNAMICS OF CONFLICT AND COOPERATION

Instructor: Mihir Kanade

8 April – 26 April 2013

COURSE DESCRIPTION:

This short certificate course introduces participants to the major themes and debates concerning the relationship between human rights, development and the international legal regulation of the two. The course examines the historical evolution of the links between human rights and development, the contested nature of their meanings, the classical doctrinal debates about the right to development and the consequences of such conceptions for international human rights law and policy debates. Participants will explore the new streams of critique that have enabled a confluence as well as a questioning of the human rights-development nexus. The course also examines selected current issues in the human rights-development interface that are salient from a policy perspective, including the Millennium Development Goals, intellectual property rights, development aid and cooperation as well as the political economy of conflicts and its relation with the development-human rights paradigm.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: 

This e-learning course provides participants with an introduction to the major contemporary issues arising out of the linkages between human rights and development.

They will:

Learn about:

• the linkages between development and human rights;
• the discourse on development itself as a human right;
• the relationships between human development, human security and human rights to development;
• the role of human rights in implementation of the MDGs;
• judicial enforceability in development matters;
• the intellectual property rights regime and its impact on development and human rights; 
• development aid and cooperation and the challenges associated with them;
• political economy of armed conflicts and its relation to the human rights-development paradigm; 

Gain skills in:

• identifying human rights concerns in implementation policies relating to development (including in policies relating to implementation of the MDGs);
• examining human rights policies through the lens of development;
• linking in-the-field development issues with the relevant international instruments;
• Identifying policy challenges to development caused by contemporary intellectual property rights regime and formulating appropriate responses thereto; 
• Harmonizing development aid and international cooperation practices with human rights and ‘development’;

Throughout the course, participants will be asked to reflect on their own experience and present work conditions in applying the skills and knowledge goals of the course.