School of Public Policy 590STF - Human Rights & Public Admin

All people are entitled to certain fundamental rights. This idea, sometimes known as the doctrine of human rights, became central to governance after World War II. Today, debate about the role of government around the world is heavily influenced by understandings about the scope of human rights. For decades, too, policymakers have invented agencies and programs to protect different rights. Some experiments have worked better than others. Governments have improved their knowledge about administrative techniques for advancing rights, and the extent to which rights protection may be constrained by bureaucratic realities. This course will examine the relationship between high-level thinking about human rights and the more concrete problems of policy design and implementation.