Course finder

<< return to browsing

Semester 1

Law, Violence, and Humanity (PLIT10125)

Subject

Politics

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 4 Politics courses at grade B or above. We will only consider University/College level courses, and we cannot consider interdisciplinary courses or courses without sufficient Politics/Government/International Relations focus. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This course examines the relationship between law, violence, and humanity. The main idea it explores is that the category of humanity, while expanding and universalizing the idea of shared human belonging, has been historically utilised as a political and legal weapon of exclusion and injustice. We will analyse the history and existing theorisation of the category of human in legal and political debates about war and the use of violence; the case-by-case justifications and criticisms of it by state and non-state actors; and the contemporary manifestations of the paradox of humanity as an instrument of violence and domination.

Course Description

This course introduces students to one of the most complex and challenging phenomena in contemporary global politics: the mobilisation of the category of humanity in a way that ultimately enables and legalise violence - often along gender and racial lines - rather than restraining it. We approach the question of the category of humanity in war and legal-political debates from four different directions which matches the four key sections of the course: (1) conceptually, we survey and assess various theorisations of the paradox at stake; (2) analytically, we explore arguments in support and against the mobilisation of humanity to restrain violence; (3) comparatively, we examine various regional and historical contexts - such as colonial and decolonial wars, humanitarian wars, and the "War on Terror" - in which state and non-state actors have deployed the category of humanity and the legal arguments related to it to make sense of the use of violence (4) critically, we probe the causes for the paradox at stake and interrogate the implications of the global politics for/against humanity.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 0%, Coursework 100%, Practical Exam 0%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a Politics exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in one Politics course each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. Enrolment in a second Politics course will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the September Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

view the timetable and further details for this course