Human rights law

Back from India, time to blog.

I have now finished my human rights diploma course. I did a Post Graduate Diploma course in Human rights law from National Law school in Bangalore.

About the course:
A very good course. It had 4 subjects namely
(Paper I) History of human rights, and rule of law - It discussed origins, evolution, and philosophy behind human rights law. It also introduces to some key issues such as universalism vs cultural relativism, feminist perspectives etc.
(Paper II) Civil and political rights - What are civil and political rights, international law, indian law, some case studies, emergency, preventive detention etc.
(Paper III) Economic, social and cultural rights - What are these rights, how are they justiciable, indian implementation, judgements etc.
(Paper IV) Access to justice: Mainly focused in Indian context, PILs, Lok adalats, what is legal aid, free legal aid etc.

About the course structure:
Each paper had a book consisting of about 15-20 papers or articles. All articles were very good, it was a great joy to read them. Very carefully selected, these articles were comprehensive, fundamental and thought provoking. My only issues was that the course material was not updated with the developments in law in last decade. Things like RTI, Torture acts etc were missing.
Exams were like typical indian exams - write short notes, or write essays etc. But this can be understood given the nature of subject. But NLSIU had a very good system. Each exam was in afternoon from 2-5 and in morning they used to have a revision class from 10 - 1 where they used to go over the entire course material for that paper. I think it is a great idea. Since we had missed the contact classes, these sessions were a good opportunity to ask questions, clear doubts and a nice concise revision of the course material.

About NLS:
In the outskirts of Blore. Difficult to reach. I used to take a bus and auto. But good school. Decent canteen. I think the best part was the faculty who were giving lectures. They really knew their subject matter quite well. The admin at DED program was also quite helpful.

So overall, a very good experience. Clearly this course was one of the best things that i have done this year so far. Results are still awaited. 50% passing marks out of 100 required. Lets see!