This course aims –

• to first introduce students to the concepts of rights and correlative duties as well as to human rights principles and institutions in a comparative context.
• to enable students to understand how human rights norms and law are developed and applied both on the domestic and international realms.
• to enable students to analyse and critically assess selected contemporary issues of human rights law, including but not limited to, universal suffrage, anti-terrorism and human rights, poverty alleviation, genocide, self-determination, and rights and justice, etc.
• to equip students with the capacity to make comparison among international human rights regimes (e.g. civil and political rights v. economic, social and cultural rights), between international (e.g. ICCPR) and regional (e.g. European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights) human rights regimes, and among the human rights regimes of selected countries, with specific emphasis on the European Union, the United States, China and HKSAR.
• to enable students to apply human rights norms, principles and law to specific cases and circumstances.
• to prepare students to engage in independent research and writing in the area of comparative human rights laws.

In this course, grading of student achievement will follow the standard grading system (A+, A, A-...F). To pass this course student must obtain an aggregate mark of 40% and a minimum of 30% in each of the coursework elements of the assessment. Coursework for this purpose means a written thesis.