Teaching human rights

Noel Whitty, Doris Buss, Wade Mansell, Susan Millns and Christine Bell

UKCLE teaching and learning manual

“The major strength of this book is that it locates teaching human rights within a teaching-learning environment…[the authors] provide valuable suggestions on objectives, contexts and teaching methods.”

— Robert McCorquodale, University of Nottingham, in the Human Rights Law Review 2002

Teaching human rights is full of practical advice and commentary on how human rights materials may be used in specific subject areas, the variety of teaching objectives open to the human rights teacher, commentaries on learning experiences, sample class exercises, assessment topics and teaching methods.

The manual contains an overview and introduction to teaching human rights on a law course, a subject which has especial relevance and impetus with the passing of the Human Rights Act 1998. This section, by Noel Whitty (Keele University) and Christine Bell (University of Ulster) introduces two broad approaches to teaching human rights:

• integrating human rights topics across the law curriculum
• teaching a human rights course
  Four subsequent sections explore these broad approaches in more detail and provide detailed guidance on teaching human rights from a range of different perspectives and at different levels of the law curriculum.

Integrating human rights topics across the law curriculum

• Teaching human rights in first year courses on constitutional and administrative law/public law – Susan Millns (University of Kent) provides examples of how human rights issues may be introduced into the teaching of a first year course
• Unpacking the right to life – Noel Whitty (Keele University) illustrates how one particular aspect of human rights, the right to life, can be integrated across the law curriculum. He also demonstrates how different teaching approaches can be adapted or improved using human rights case studies.

Teaching a human rights course

• International human rights – Doris Buss (Keele University) describes learning and teaching issues in the delivery of an international human rights course
• Fundamental human rights premises – Wade Mansell (University of Kent) sets out a series of fundamental premises that he argues should underpin the teaching of human rights