This course introduces students to the global human rights regime. It employs a variety of perspectives--including historical, political, theoretical, and legal--in order to cultivate a broad understanding of human rights. Core human rights treaties will be examined, as will mechanisms for monitoring and enforcement. General issues recurring in the course are: the enduring divide between human rights theory and practice; the changing dimensions of state sovereignty; the potential for international law to bring about a “good society” and its substantive vision for the same; and the ability of the human rights regime to influence the course of both international relations and domestic politics.