International Baccalaureate IB Global politics

- Human rights are basic claims and entitlements inherent to all humans
- considered essential for dignity, inalienable, universal
- origins in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
- critiques view them as Western or culturally relative.

Codifcation, protection and monitoring of human rights

Practice of human rights

Debates surrounding human rights and their application: differing interpretations of justice, liberty and equality

Definitions of human rights
- Notions such as inalienability, universality, indivisibility, equality, justice, liberty
The UN’s_The Universal_Declaration of Human Rights_(1948)
Developments in human rights over time and space
- Human rights milestones, eg civil and political rights, economic, social and cultural rights, gender rights, children’s rights, indigenous people’s rights, refugee rights
- Internationalization of human rights, eg universal jurisdiction, international humanitarian law

Codification, protection and monitoring of human rights
- Human rights laws and treaties – role of custom; Human rights in constitutions (e.g., South Africa, Brazil); International treaties such as ICCPR, ICESCR, Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, Rome Statute; Protection and enforcement at different levels – national courts and police, International Court of Justice (ICJ), International Criminal Court (ICC), Inter‑American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Cambodia Tribunal; Monitoring mechanisms – ombudsmen, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, International Red Cross and Red Crescent, election monitoring.

- Claims on human rights – labour rights, indigenous land claims, movements for gender equality, debates about same‑sex marriage
- Violations of human rights – child soldiers, human trafficking, forced labour, forced relocation, denial of prisoners of war rights, violations of freedom of speech, violations justified by counter‑terrorism, gender discrimination.

Individual versus collective rights
- Western, Asian and African conceptions; indigenous conceptions

Universal rights versus cultural relativism
- Sharia law, honour killings, hate crime laws, consumer rights

Use of human rights for political gain, humanitarian arguments, responsibility to protect, sanctions.