Has the sight of an ‘L.LM’ or ‘Master of Laws’ ever sounded vaguely intimidating, maybe even terrifying to you? Or have you ever struggled with the anxiety that a ‘Master of Arts’ won’t be taken seriously in the human rights field? Sure enough, human rights frameworks are very much grounded in an established legal tradition in the realm of international human rights law. They’re the legal frameworks providing basis for a set of norms and standards meant to ensure a world of dignity, justice, and equality for all – a guiding vision that states are meant to voluntarily use to structure their laws, actions and policies.
But does that mean you only need to deep-dive into the human rights field if you have a law degree, or some background in legal training? Human rights lawyers, activists, writers, journalists, political analysts, development practitioners, field workers, the heads of international- and national organizations and the hundreds upon thousands of dedicated professionals working within the field would answer a resounding ‘no.’ The human rights field is steadily evolving into a rapidly interdisciplinary framework requiring the insights of various interconnected – and, at times, highly diverse – disciplines, all meant to coordinate efforts and work together with states to establish accountability for their actions, uplift vulnerable and marginalized populations, and contribute to a better, more humane, just and fair world for us all.
The academic disciplines mentioned here have made significant headway within the human rights field over the last few decades. In case you’re a student considering an academic career in the field, this article might provide some helpful resources to get you started, and perhaps even pick a major you might be interested in that’s linked to the human rights field. Professionals reading this article can expand their experience as well, depending on their area of work. And lawyers reading this…come on, you know that an overly legalistic approach to a field as diverse as human rights isn’t all there is to it! (or so says Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona, former United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, who herself holds an L.LM in Human Rights from the University of Essex.)
Without further ado, here’s some non-legal academic disciplines that will help you immeasurably in terms of the foundational knowledge and research direction required for exploring human rights topics and hopefully emerging as a successful, confident and well-rounded human rights defender!
POLITICAL SCIENCE, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
At least a good part of human rights research, writing, advocacy and field work will include you extensively researching the actions of states, the intricate web of geopolitical and regional arrangements and power dynamics that inform most of their decisions, and how you can contextualize these in terms of their obligations towards their citizens. Geopolitics is a notoriously convoluted and difficult to follow topic – many regions of the world have new and evolving problems almost on a daily basis! However, with your background, you can help ease communicating such issues and make them easier to understand for people without the relevant background or context. Human rights as a discipline also tends to fall into the ‘politics’ side of the legal-political sphere; most people thus think that ‘fighting for human rights’ is tantamount to protesting before their governments and making demands of them. But it’s important to also emphasize that organizing politically is itself a human right, and so many such protests occurring on a global scale have such worryingly similar foundations and factors underlying them. States are the primary global mechanism for enforcing human rights standards, so your understanding of how they work, as well as important aspects of the political science field such as democratization, good governance, and the relationship between states and citizens are essential facets to enrich human rights practice.
HISTORY
If you’re surprised seeing this discipline mentioned here, don’t be! A historical perspective to human rights is invaluable in terms of analyzing trends, assessing similarities and differences, and accounting for underlying political and economic factors influencing different events over long (and sometimes very long) periods of time. Bill Clinton refused to refer to the Rwandan genocide as such – but George Bush leaped to refer to Darfur as one while simultaneously refusing to send American troops to intervene, why so? Could it be linked to the history of universally-denigrated US military interventions in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq preceding it, or perhaps other supplementary factors such as increased media visibility? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written and formally signed by world powers in 1948 – but why did it take nearly twenty years until the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights were formally written, agreed upon and consolidated? Could it have to do with the Cold War, self-determination movements in former colonies around the world, and the emerging anti-war sentiment of the 1970s? A historical perspective to human rights could provide a ‘genealogical’ view in terms of assessing the actions and events of the past in terms of their implications for the actions and events of the present, and how mitigating factors such as the changing economy, political sentiment, presence of regional conflict, or – as has been so aptly demonstrated – a global public health emergency can contribute to changes in such actions and events for the future.
ECONOMICS, BUSINESS STUDIES
A prevailing challenge within the human rights field at present has to do with measuring exactly how rights are being protected and fulfilled on part of states. How do you measure whether the right to education, or the right to healthcare, social security, an adequate standard of living, or perhaps just and humane conditions of work are being upheld? Is it enough to just build a school or a hospital and then just be done with it? State governments often complain they haven’t enough budgetary resources to spend towards education and healthcare and that they’ll get to it ‘progressively’ at some unspecified point in the future. This is where you, with your knowledge of heterodox macroeconomic frameworks, budgeting, benchmarking and bridging the gap between market forces and human rights standards come in. Economists such as Martha Nussbaum and Amartya Sen have worked hard at the field to establish how deprivation and poverty are essentially denials of fundamental freedoms of those vulnerable to it, and how strengthening their capacities to fight for such freedoms should underlie all development initiatives. Many of the topics within the economics field, such as inflation, employment and growth, are all strongly connected to human rights concerns such as decent work, non-discrimination in availing of employment opportunities, and social security in the face of unemployment - all increasingly visible topics within the context of the present pandemic.
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Think only states are responsible for protecting human rights through laws and legislations? Think again! An emerging consensus on the international level is increasingly attributing responsibility to third-party corporations, business institutions, development/aid organizations and others with regards to their protection of the rights of the populations their operations directly affect. Organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Oxfam, ActionAid International and Save the Children are some examples, with their actions towards healthcare, education, skills training and the like directly impacting the capabilities of the people they work with, and many such organizations declaring a commitment to mainstreaming human rights norms in all their policies. Even large international financial institutions such as World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are slowly beginning to incorporate a focus on protecting economic and social rights in their activities within countries; the emerging concept of ‘development cooperation’ across states directly reflects the conditionality of protecting human rights standards underlying all business transactions on a bilateral or even multilateral basis. Such large corporations and projects can often have a negative impact on such rights, however, especially if they lead to worsened work opportunities and socioeconomic inequalities within the countries they’re operating within, so it’s increasingly necessary to ensure that human rights impact assessments are also mainstreamed as part of corporate social responsibility policy. And who better to bridge the gap between these two paradigms than a budding development practitioner with a human rights background as well? The Sustainable Development Goals are even described as being grounded within human rights law, and are an important step in ensuring that all development initiatives are essentially drawing from a foundation centered upon human dignity.
PSYCHOLOGY
With an increase in violent conflicts the world over is also the increase in refugees, internally displaced people and survivors of mass atrocities within the humanitarian crises occurring on a global scale. Someone with a background in psychology would find great value in working with such vulnerable populations, ensuring that their mental health needs are also being adequately met, and structuring interventions and advocating for policy-making that effectively addresses these. It’s not easy to speak to survivors of torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and have to provide them a safe space where they can share their experiences - which makes it all the more necessary. For example, National Preventive Mechanisms (NPMs) which monitor and report on conditions within prisons and similar institutions specifically include personnel with psychiatric training and similar such backgrounds to assess whether persons deprived of liberty are being mistreated, and the impact of the same upon their psychological and mental health. Human rights frameworks apply for all - from survivors to even perpetrators of human rights violations - given our shared humanity and essential needs, the deprivation of which can often result in abnormal, anti-social behaviour. A sensitive understanding of such factors is an essential aspect of policy-making that truly aims to address the causes of violence, discrimination and abuse at their roots over simply seeking to cure their symptoms through criminalization and other punitive measures. You’ll need a ton of resilience and courage to be a part of the human rights field in this specific direction, and will it be worth it? Always.
SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY
Human rights frameworks essentially hinge upon the notion that they create a legal obligation on part of states which individuals can claim has been violated, and to which states are accountable. But what if a group wants to collectively claim their rights have been violated? What if a certain indigenous community believes that the penalty for committing a crime such as theft warrants being struck by a whip a certain number of times? What if people with insecure immigration status who aren’t considered ‘citizens’ within a particular sociopolitical and economic context experience human rights violations? An emerging focus on modern anthropogenic concepts such as legal pluralism, citizenship and nationality, and even human rights themselves characterizes sociological and anthropological explorations of human rights frameworks; human rights are viewed as social constructions developed, codified, supported on an institutional level by humans, meant to guide efforts towards the creation of a particular society, and occurring within a particular socio-historical and economic context. SImilarly, since humans don’t usually function outside of the ‘society’ within which they exist and operate and because human societies the world over are so highly multifaceted and diverse, it stands to reason that their conception of ‘human rights’ might also be highly different. A background in such disciplines can play an important role in assessing policy responses to legal pluralist practices followed by different communities, and explore how different political systems can be conceptualized across different cultures that reflect their vision for an ‘ideal’ society and inform their rights-claims.
RELIGIOUS STUDIES, THEOLOGY
Possibly another surprising addition, but a relevant one still. Did you know that the idea of humans being ‘special’ simply by virtue of their humanity arose from a number of ancient religions and cultural practices? The belief that human beings are created in the image of God and acting as his representative on earth underlies the idea that human dignity is inherently linked to this special relationship with a higher deity. This has inspired definitions of what constitutes a ‘human being’ and what characteristics they might have; Jewish and Christian theology view freedom as one such important aspect, while Hinduism and Buddhism define ‘humanity’ as emerging from one’s personal spiritual connection to a higher divinity. In all such religions, having qualities such as freedom and the ability to determine one’s own identity entails responsibility towards others in the form of duties; similarly, across all religions and cultures, at least some form of the Golden Rule exists as a kind of universal moral code, which has at times even been applied within legal structures. Many religious figures have historically even emerged as staunch critics of social and legal injustices, and espouse values encouraging humane treatment of vulnerable groups, solidarity, peace, responsibility to care for others, and other such values meant essentially to reduce human suffering as the basis of human morality. Even the main UN conventions are the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - reflecting the influence of such unifying beliefs and values. Similarly, a large number of humanitarian, aid and development organizations today are also faith-based, with rights-language used as part of their guiding principles.
PHILOSOPHY, ETHICS
Human rights frameworks are very much a product of modernizing forces and are, arguably, biased in favour of individualistic and Western perspectives in many of their formulations; as such, they draw from a foundation of specific cultural, political and even ethical background that frames and shapes the international human rights system of protection in different ways. This has actually raised contestations from non-Western powers on the basis of the ‘values’ espoused by human rights frameworks, and how conceptions of equality, justice and human dignity are ‘translated’ across cultures. Is a Kantian approach focused on the protection of individual freedoms in private and public spheres the way to structure human rights protective standards? What then of non-Western cultures that follow more collectivistic and consensus-based cultural patterns of identity? These philosophical differences might seem far-removed from the present global context, but they have powerful and far-reaching effects through legal decisions, activism efforts and policymaking that directly impact human lives. Human rights frameworks might be ‘translated’ in different ways across cultures, but their underlying philosophical foundation hinges upon the freedom and dignity of all human beings, and which creates corresponding obligations within all legal, social and political spheres. Understanding such differences and establishing common grounds on the basis of such different ways of thinking is an important step towards increased cooperation towards a fairer, more humane world.
MEDIA STUDIES, JOURNALISM
Freedom of thought and expression are essential preconditions to free and equal democracies; the right to freedom of expression necessarily entails free media, and free media is necessary within all societies claiming to respect and protect human rights. Students of this field would have an insider perspective on the balance between media freedom and media responsibility, and be able to identify ways through which it can be used to draw attention to the plight of vulnerable populations around the world, reporting on situations of human rights violations, and highlighting how power is distributed and used (or misused) within societies. Social media visibility is sometimes the only way that certain groups and individuals facing state oppression can draw attention to their concerns, and there exists a dangerous trend of declining media attention on certain groups, which has led to the international community effectively having ‘forgotten’ them - such as ethnic Tibetans, who enjoyed great visibility during the ‘Free TIbet’ campaigns of the early 2000s, but are now scarcely reported about. Could this also happen to the Uyghur population of Xinjiang, who is now facing similar such repression and abuse at the hands of the Chinese state? Media Studies is a fascinating field when combined with a focus on human rights reporting, advocacy, and investigation, and creating spaces of support for social movements and new forms of activism within the present pandemic, as well as ensuring representation of marginalized voices.
DIDN’T SEE A FIELD YOU’RE FAMILIAR WITH/INTERESTED IN? DON’T WORRY!
There’s very few topics or areas of life at present that human rights thinking isn’t relevant for. You could have a background in social work, women/gender studies, design and fashion, human resource management, even the fine arts - and you could still find space to have a human rights focus and centering of human rights concerns within each of these. Many universities are even designing specialized courses, such as the Master of Applied Arts in Human Rights at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, which specifically focus on the intersections of human rights frameworks with a variety of disciplines.
An important disclaimer: it’s certainly an asset to have a solid foundation within law and legal frameworks – especially the principles of international law – and it’s entirely possible that if you choose to take a course in Human Rights at the undergraduate or even postgraduate level, you’ll have to get comfortable with citing case law, researching court decisions of multiple judicial bodies at regional, national and international levels, and understanding their legal reasoning. However, it’s equally important to take into account how academic disciplines within the social sciences contribute to the human rights field as a whole. To explain it simply, legal frameworks seek to establish accountability – essentially ‘Who’s to blame and what obligations have they violated?’, while social science disciplines seek to understand the underlying factors behind why a violation might have occurred, or what events and occurrences enabled it’s happening in the first place.
No matter what your academic or professional background might be, some of the common uniting factors across human rights defenders the world over include our commitment to justice, freedom, dignity, equality, non-discrimination, and using our positions and platforms to create space for others without the same advantages. Your actions on a professional level in the future will be well-supported through scholarly engagement with the fascinating field of human rights, and provide you the tools for successfully organizing, litigating and advocating for sustainable change and a humane, fairer and more just world for us all.
Pallavi is a student at the University of Vienna, currently completing her Master of Arts in Human Rights. She has extensive experience in the fields of education, women's rights, community organization and development, and aims to channelize her research interests towards actionable change for vulnerable and marginalized populations.