International Human Rights Law

This course is offered jointly by the Department for Continuing Education and the Faculty of Law. It is conducted on a part-time basis over two years and includes two periods of distance learning via the internet as well as two summer sessions held at New College, Oxford.

The course is designed in particular for lawyers and other human rights advocates who wish to pursue advanced studies in international human rights law, but may need to do so alongside work responsibilities. A central objective of the course is to ensure that you not only know but can also use human rights law. The curriculum places roughly equal emphasis on the substance of human rights law, its implementation and research.

Students come from all over the world and from a variety of advocacy settings: in private and corporate practice, with various international and non-governmental organisations, the armed forces, universities, foundations, the media, medicine and other fields. The faculty is also diverse and includes internationally recognised human rights scholars and advocates. The department seeks the widest possible cultural, belief, identity and socio-economic diversity among both students and tutors.

The first period of distance learning comprises six units of guided online study each of four weeks duration. Each unit includes a reading period, tutor-guided online discussions and submission of a 2,000-word assignment. For the second period of distance learning students work independently on researching and writing their dissertation with one-to-one support from an online supervisor. Summer sessions in Oxford comprise three weeks of tutor-led small group seminars plus a week for independent revision and two examinations. In addition, the first summer session includes a further week of dissertation–related exercises to prepare students for the independent dissertation work they will undertake in their second year.

The degree is assessed by coursework (20%), examinations (50%) and a dissertation (30%).

This course is taught partly online and you will need to have reliable email and internet facilities plus access to a conventional computer (either a PC or a Mac) to submit coursework assignments. The computing facilities required to take this course are set out at the Department for Continuing Education online support website. Advice about using mobile devices can also found on the site.

The allocation of graduate supervision for this course is the responsibility of the Department for Continuing Education and it is not always possible to accommodate the preferences of incoming graduate students to work with a particular member of staff. Under exceptional circumstances a supervisor may be found outside the Department for Continuing Education.

Students are likely to have different supervisors for each part of the course depending on class allocation/choices and of course it may be necessary to assign a new academic supervisor during the course of study or before registration for reasons which might include sabbatical leave, maternity leave or change in employment.

Students have gone on to work as prosecutors and defence lawyers at the International Criminal Court, other UN criminal tribunals, and the European and Inter-American Human Rights Courts. They work in private and multi-national corporate practice; in various ministries in their national governments and as UN officials ranging from refugee legal protection officers to country representatives. Others are judges, university professors, lawyers with their national armed forces, heads of NGOs and journalists.

Graduates from the course also include economists, obstetricians, epidemiologists, psychiatrists and forensic anthropologists. They are advisors in the White House, the Australian Foreign Ministry, the German Defence Ministry and the EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs. They are defence counsel at Guantanamo Bay, do front-line community work in Afghanistan and emergency co-ordination in Sudan, Haiti and many other places. They represent indigenous peoples in northern Canada, Western Australia, the Philippines and Brazil.

The University will seek to deliver this course in accordance with the description set out in this course page. However, there may be situations in which it is desirable or necessary for the University to make changes in course provision, either before or after registration.

For further information, please see our page on changes to courses.

Other courses you may wish to consider

If you're thinking about applying for this course, you may also wish to consider the courses listed below. These courses may have been suggested due to their similarity with this course, or because they are offered by the same department or faculty.

Courses suggested by the department

Refugee and Forced Migration Studies MSc

All graduate courses in the social sciences offered by this department

Applied Landscape Archaeology MSc

Archaeology DPhil

Continuing Education DPhil

Diplomatic Studies MSt

Diplomatic Studies PGDip

International Human Rights Law MSt

Sustainable Urban Development MSc

Sustainable Urban Development DPhil

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Entry requirements