Human Rights and Genocide
Human Rights and Genocide
Learning Objectives
- Students will identify key human rights, as well as examples of them being respected or violated, or examples of violations facing consequences.
- Students will analyze the various challenges of prosecuting genocide.
Materials
Homework
- Read "What Are Human Rights?"
- Browse The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Students will explore it in-depth in class.
Class One
- (5 minutes) Briefly review the reading:
- Review the definition of human rights and the three categories listed in the reading
- Introduce the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
- (20 minutes) Have students work in small groups to fill out the attached handout about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as they re-read it in depth.
- (20 minutes) Have students find examples of the rights in the UDHR in action. With either of the options below, have them write their findings on the board, or in an online space such as Padlet, so that they can view each other's work.
- If you have spent time covering current events in class, ask students to think back on what they have covered and identify examples of rights being respected or violated, or examples of violations facing consequences.
- Otherwise, have students browse an international news source and identify examples of rights being respected or violated, or examples of violations facing consequences.
Homework
- Read "What Is Genocide?"
Class Two
The attached slideshow can be used to guide the class through this day's lesson.
- (5 minutes) Review reading with the whole class. Review and call on students to rephrase in their own words:
- The definition of genocide
- The five acts of genocide
- The definitions of crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and willful killing
- (5 minutes) Review the differences among the various venues to prosecuting genocide and crimes against humanity
- International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
- International Criminal Court (ICC)
- International Court of Justice (ICJ)
- (10 minutes) Discuss some of the challenges of prosecuting genocide. It might be helpful to organize the challenges into categories
- Challenges identifying what constitutes genocide
- Challenges prosecuting genocide
- (25 minutes) In groups, have students select one of the challenges they identified and propose a plan to address the challenge. Their plan should include the following elements:
- What change do you propose?
- How will it improve the world’s ability to protect human rights and prevent genocide?
- What would have to happen for your plan to take place? Who would need to support it?
- What potential drawbacks are there to your plan? Why is it still a good idea in spite of these drawbacks?
Vocabulary
- international law
a body of formal rules and norms considered binding among states. It is one of the organized bases upon which states interact with each other in the international system.
- genocide
the intentional mass destruction of a group of people based on religion, ethnicity, or another identity or characteristic.
- sanction
a tool of statecraft, frequently involving economic measures such as asset freezes and trade restrictions, used to exact a certain behavior or outcome from another party.
- Geneva Conventions
a set of four treaties and three protocols that establish standards of humanitarian treatment in international law for people involved in or affected by war.
- tribunal
a special court or body assigned to rule on a particular legal issue. Tribunals are often established by national governments or international organizations to try accused terrorists and war criminals.