The degree requires a completion of a minimum of 36 credits over three regular semesters and a summer term, including a master’s thesis. All students must take at least one credit of environmental studies in satisfaction of the university-wide environmental studies requirement.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 301 Seminar in Human Rights and Social Justice; Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
As a core and foundation course for the MAHRSJ Program, it aims at equipping students with fundamental knowledge on various dimensions of human rights, emphasizing its historical, theoretical and philosophical foundations. Students will master the key human rights concepts and vocabulary, gain knowledge on the main international human rights protection systems, as well as become knowledgeable about the recurrent debates and controversies related to human rights.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 302: Justice, Knowledge, and Change; Elective
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
The course combines theory and practice to critically question how various actors work for social change. Taught in parallel to HRSJ 307 (Foundations of Social Science Research), HRSJ 302 offers a complementary space for reflection on producing knowledge, which is turned towards change. It asks how we define and respond to injustice, providing frameworks to consider the power relationships inherent in those processes. Human rights practitioners are invited to class to discuss how they identify and respond to a particular issue in their work. HRSJ 302 will provide you with a toolkit of critical questions leading towards HRSJ 303 (Project Development, Monitoring, & Evaluation), where you will put these questions into action.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 303 Project Development, Monitoring, & Evaluation; Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
Moving from identifying a problem to developing and implementing a proposal responding to that problem is a key challenge for governments, public sector organizations, and civil society organizations alike. This course develops the skills and knowledge needed to manage that process. Emphasizing practical, project-based work, it covers how to define and articulate a project scope, identify and engage key stakeholders, and define roles, responsibilities, and deadlines within a team. It also looks at how to benchmark, monitor, and evaluate whether your project is achieving its stated goals. Participants will also be introduced to the role of the project manager and the fundamental concepts and competencies necessary to lead human rights and social justice projects.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 304: Contemporary Challenges in Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Elective
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
The course aims to discuss and analyze economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR) as a subcategory of human rights. The course will focus on the historical, theoretical, and practical development of ESCR, including international instruments and jurisprudence. Specific rights such as the right to decent work, social security, adequate living standards, housing, food, health, education, and culture will be discussed in detail with a particular emphasis on the current economic, social and cultural challenges facing Armenia and the region. Three hours of instructor-led class time per week.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 305 Social Justice and Identity; Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
Taking an intersectional approach, this course explores the relationship between social justice and identities/identifiers including gender, sexuality, ‘race’ and ethnicity, disability, religion, and class. It asks how identity is constructed and explores its lived social reality. It links questions of identity construction with analysis of how power relationships and structures of domination drive inequity across different social identities, statuses, and groups. It examines experiences of inequity on both individual and structural levels. Finally, it explores responses to those inequities, taking in both (a) state policy and (b) civil society and social movements’ response, as well as the interplay between the two.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 307 Foundations of Social Science Research, Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
Research and evidence production are crucial to both advocacy and intervention design. This course therefore introduces you to common methods and standards in qualitative and quantitative research. It develops your ability to critically analyze research, enabling you to both challenge others’ claims and yourself propose relevant research designs to answer specific questions. This will support you to conduct your own empirical research as part of the master’s thesis project and beyond. In line with HRSJ 302, the course encourages reflection on the ethics of research. It also questions how we construct knowledge and recognize expertise, as well as how our values and positionality shape knowledge production.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 309 Human Rights in the Security Sector, Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course description
Human Rights in the Security Sector will present the link between security and human rights is important. This link is reinforced if we consider that human rights define human security. Individual, international, and national developments require the protection of human rights; therefore, there is no security without the protection of human rights. Development requires respect for human rights, and respect for human rights prevents conflicts. Using the concept of human rights in the security sector helps actors like the police and the military to understand their role as duty-bearers in providing security as a public service to the people – the rights-holders. Security sector and human rights are also closely associated with democracy and the rule of law. The course will introduce such specific areas as: border security and human rights; conditions of detention and imprisonment, prohibition of torture; ill-treatment prevention issues by police and in police detention facilities; this will also include other law-enforcement bodies; right to a fair trial, etc.
HRSJ 310 Human Rights Clinic (legal or social science research project); Elective
Number of credits: 6
Course Description
The Human Rights Clinic is optional; students may choose to complete the clinic or an internship over two months’ period. The Human Rights Clinic will provide students with the opportunity to acquire hands-on experience under supervision. Students will apply the knowledge gained in human rights to practical situations thereby engaging directly with current human rights issues in their legal jurisdictions, local communities, or more globally.
The clinic will run part-time. The first two weeks will propose a schedule of more intensive, practitioner and academic-led training. The subsequent six weeks will be composed of regular group meetings and supervision from the faculty supervisor.
Students will select one of two tracks and complete small-group projects within them: Legal Clinic and Social Justice Clinic. Projects employ a variety of methods and may support social science research, litigation, advocacy, policy and program development, or extend technical guidance on human rights to civil society organizations, national human rights institutions, governments, UN human rights bodies and other international organizations.
HRSJ 311 Internship; Elective
Number of credits: 6
Course Description
The AUA HRSJ Internship program provides Graduate students with a unique chance to gain experience in the field of human rights and justice, explore new interests, develop skills and create a network of contacts. As interns, students will be actively engaged in an intensive learning experience with local and international human rights experts and policymakers, thus promoting their personal and professional growth. The internship is optional. It will run part-time over two month’s period. Throughout the internship the intern will receive direct and close supervision and instructions by the supervisors of the hosting institution. Every intern will be given a list of tasks to be performed at the hosting institution.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 312 Master’s Thesis; Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
The master’s thesis allows students to independently research a question of their own choosing. It is an opportunity to develop expertise in the chosen area, requiring substantial reading and, where appropriate, empirical research. Students will be supervised by MA HRSJ faculty, with whom you will have regular meetings individually and/or in small groups to discuss and develop your work. The master’s thesis course will also propose whole-group meetings to discuss key aspects of the thesis. These include academic writing and citation practices, reviewing and synthesizing literature, and designing research questions.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 313 International Human Rights Advocacy; Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
The course is dedicated to the implementation and enforcement, as well as protection of human rights through international, regional and national institutions and by individuals (human rights activists, journalists, advocates, etc.) and non-governmental organizations. The course will explore human rights advocacy tools and strategies applied in current political and social contexts and
through case studies. It will critically examine the role of institutions and non-governmental organizations in upholding, advocating or failing to uphold international human rights standards. Topics will include challenges and opportunities in human rights areas using different fields: the intersection of international human rights and humanitarian law; economic and social rights, etc. The discussions will be built on practical cases. This course is designed for future or acting human rights lawyers and advocates, journalists, diplomats and other professionals.
Course Number and Title: HRSJ 334 European Human Rights Protection Mechanisms; Core
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
Course description: The course provides an overview of the main mechanisms of human
rights protection in Europe. Students explore human rights protection mechanisms under the
Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights, the European Social Charter, the
Convention for the Prevention of Torture and others. Jurisprudence of the European Court of
Human Rights and human rights documents of the Council of Europe, OSCE, European
Union will be studied as well. Students also examine the possibilities of human rights
protection through standard-setting and monitoring mechanisms in Europe.
Course Number and Title: PA301 Policy Process & Analysis; Elective cross-reg.
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
This graduate seminar seeks to introduce students to the theory of the policy process and the practice of policy analysis. The first portion of the course surveys various theories of the policy process. The second part of the course considers policy analysis as a process of multidisciplinary inquiry that creates, critically assesses, and communicates information that is useful for understanding and improving public policies. The practice of policy analysis is based on several methodological approaches, each with its own theoretical logic and values. Studied together, students will gain a firm understand of the role of policy and the ways in which it can be professionally analyzed.
Course Number and Title: LAW 344 International Criminal Law, Elective Cross-reg.
Number of Credits: 3
Course Description
One of the main reasons for development of the modern international criminal law (ICL) in the 20th century was to end impunity of individuals responsible for mass atrocities, which today carry such legal labels as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Eradication of impunity is achieved by prosecution and punishment of perpetrators of international crimes by international criminal tribunals and domestic courts, as well as by provision of reparations to victims of international crimes. During the course students will study the key areas of ICL, such as general principles of ICL, rights of victims and reparations for harm caused by international crimes, jurisdiction and reparation regimes of International Criminal Court and other tribunals, modes of criminal liability, objective and subjective elements of core international crimes. Students will study these and other areas of ICL through completion of various individual and group assignments, e.g. reading, writing legal materials and making presentations, analyzing and discussing complex situations