MSc Human Rights and Diplomacy

• Explain, analyse and apply international human rights law in both theory and practice.
• Engage in the theoretical framework of diplomacy, its history and the development of international relations.
• Engage and debate critiques of human rights.
• Draft documents and possess the skills needed to negotiate their progress in a range of human rights institutions.
• Find your way within the United Nations Institutions working on human rights matters and local NGOs.
• Apply a wide range of theoretical and practical methods to human rights research, activism and politics.

In the Autumn semester, students with a strong enough profile will be supported to apply for UN internships. These have recently included internships at the International Court of Justice, the UN Joint Inspection Unit, UNESCO, UN Women, UNDP and others. These internships are generally unpaid.

Many other students pursue integrated professional projects in Scotland and the UK. Recent projects included:

• the Forth Valley Welcome refugee organisation;
• Nourish Scotland on the right to food;
• Positive Action on Housing focused on rooms for refugees;
• Scottish PEN focused on journalists' and writers' rights;
• Howard League Scotland focused on the rights of prisoners;
• Stirling Council working on poverty sensitivity training;
• Leprosy Mission Scotland; Revive Campaign on the psychological effects of explosive violence;
• the UN Special Rapporteur for Cambodia.

Our course has partnered with UN Women (UN organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women), the Institute for Human Rights and Democracy in Africa (IHRDA) and the East African Centre for Human Rights (EACHRights) to deliver placement opportunities to some of our students.

Entry onto the course does not guarantee entry onto the UN internship module. There is a limited number of places on this module, so students for this module need to go through a further selective application and possible interview process during the course. Students who do not gain entry to the UN internship module are supported to pursue excellent placements in non-UN human rights organisations, or undertake a dissertation.

As well as the integrated trip to Geneva for all students, the UN internships include options abroad. Those who pursue an internship will have living costs of approximately £1600 per month for internships in Geneva, approximately £1600 per month for internships in New York, and £1000 per month for internships in Rome – with variable costs for alternative internships.

We recommend you consult websites for cost of living in different locations if you are planning to pursue the UN internship. Those who pursue local Scottish or UK based projects or the academic dissertation also need to think about the cost of living in those locations. Go to the Which? website to see an estimated breakdown of student costs, helping you to work out your budget.

Course lecturers Dr Damian Etone, Professor Rowan Cruft and Professor Katie Boyle are widely-published in the areas of human rights and diplomacy. 

Professor Cruft’s monograph, Human Rights, Ownership, and the Individual, was published in 2019 by Oxford University Press. It offers an account of the philosophical foundations of human rights, defending their conception as rights rather than mere values, goals or duties. He is also co-editor of OUP’s 2015 volume, Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights. 

Dr Etone’s recent monograph, The Human Rights Council: The Impact of the Universal Periodic Review in Africa was published in 2020 by Routledge, assessing and defending the universal periodic review process as an important addition to the international human rights monitoring framework. He also reports on international criminal law cases for OUP’s International Criminal Law Series. 

Dr Boyle’s monograph on Economic and Social Rights: Justiciability and Principles of Adjudication was published with Routledge in 2020. She has published widely on economic, social and cultural rights, incorporation, justiciability and models of constitutionalisation including in the International Journal of Human Rights. Her research has been adopted by national human rights institutions and has featured in UN Committee level proceedings. Katie recently published a report with the Scottish Human Rights Commission on Models of Incorporation and Justiciability for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. She qualified as a solicitor with the Government Legal Service and was appointed to advise the First Minister on the FM Advisory Group on Human Rights Leadership in 2018.

For the legal, political and philosophical parts of the course, your teachers will be top academic researchers. In pursuing their modules, you will be encouraged both to learn the latest legal, political and philosophical positions and to develop your own analyses. The optional modules allow you to explore human rights and diplomacy within broader settings. For the practical training, your teachers will be experienced UN practitioners who will use simulation exercises, role play and case studies to help you gain negotiating skills. All teaching will involve a mixture of group work, with the exception of the one-to-one discussions and training used to help students decide whether (and where) to apply for an internship, and the similar focused discussions for those who opt for the academic dissertation. 

Students taking the internship or professional project will have both a Stirling and a UNITAR mentor. Detailed preparation and guidance – including assistance applying, and preparation for interviews – will be offered in advance of the internships and projects, as part of the Preparation for Independent Work module. Students taking the dissertation will have a primary supervisor with expertise in the student’s chosen specialism.

The Approaches to Human Rights module will introduce students to a very wide range of approaches to human rights, and will also involve sessions aimed at allowing students to share their own varied human rights and/or academic experiences, including allowing students from a professional background to compare their views with those of recent graduates.

The Geneva Study Trip will provide the opportunity for a first-hand professional immersion within the United Nations and Geneva’s multilateral working environments. Students will learn more about the main decision-makers and will have a unique opportunity to meet practitioners from the major institutions, including the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council as well as other institutions, enabling them to strengthen their knowledge of the UN System and other international organisations working on human rights matters.

The content of the study visit will be customised to meet the needs of the student and can include meetings with senior officials from the UN agencies situated in Geneva in the fields of peace, security and disarmament; trade, economic and labour affairs; environment and sustainable development; health, intellectual property, science and telecommunication; and humanitarian law, human rights and migration. Participation in the study trip is subject to the arrangements set out by the course and the visits will vary each year depending on availability.

Assessment and assessment criteria

Academic modules will be assessed by coursework and some graded groupwork.  Modules focused on practice and skills will similarly be assessed by reflective coursework and practical assessment. A range of assessments will be used and will measure achievement of learning outcomes. The assessment criteria will be set out in advance of each assignment.  The internship and academic project will be assessed partly by means of a post-project self-reflective report written by the student, and partly by reports on the student’s performance offered by the internship/project provider.

Feedback on assessment

You will receive feedback on coursework within three weeks of completion of the assessment. Feedback is usually provided electronically on formal coursework. Feedback and guidance sessions with teaching staff are available on all modules. These provide regular opportunities to discuss feedback further. See more information about feedback on assessment.

Dr Damian Etone

damian.etone@stir.ac.uk
+44 (0) 1786 467555

Dr Damian Etone

Dr Damian Etone is an expert in International Human Rights Law and focus on the participation of African states in various international human rights mechanisms. He is author of the monograph The Human Rights Council: The Impact of the Universal Periodic Review in Africa published with Routledge in 2020 and he has prior experience teaching human rights law in different places including Australia and England. His current expertise includes International Human Rights Law, International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice. He has worked for over six years as an International Criminal Law Case Reporter for OUP and published over 12 reports in the OUP international criminal law series. Damian previously worked as an Assistant Human Rights officer at the Cameroon National Commission on Human Rights and Freedoms between 2011 and 2012 and has previously received a Chevening Award (2012-2013) and a Beacon of Enlightenment Award (2014-2017). 

The Rt Hon Sir George Reid FRSE, Professorial Teaching Fellow, University of Stirling

Sir George is a former MP, MSP, Member of the Assembly of the Council of Europe, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and Lord-Lieutenant of Clackmannanshire. Between his time at Westminster and Holyrood, he spent 15 years working in disasters and conflicts worldwide as a director of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent. Since retirement, George has chaired strategic reviews in the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and is currently a Member of the Scottish Government's Standing Council on Europe.  

Mr Philippe Aubert

Philippe Aubert is Programme Specialist at UNITAR’s Division for Multilateral Diplomacy, where he started in 2013 working on online projects, and progressively transitioned into developing and implementing a wide variety of customized and face-to-face activities in Geneva, New York City, Vienna, Rome, Moscow, as well as throughout the world, for a total of more than 50 face-to-face activities implemented each year by the Programme. Prior to UNITAR, Philippe worked as an assistant for the economic and political affairs at the Embassy of Switzerland in Australia, as well as a teacher in Switzerland.

Postgraduate tuition fee loans

Scottish students may be eligible to apply to the Students Award Agency for Scotland (SAAS) for loans of up to £11,500 to cover tuition fees and associated living costs.

English students can apply for a loan of up to £12,167 each year as part of the Postgraduate Masters Loan Scheme.

Welsh students can apply for financial support of up to £18,770 as a combination of grant and loan from Student Finance Wales.

Northern Irish students can apply for a postgraduate tuition fee loan of up to £5,500 from Student Finance NI.

If you’re domiciled in the UK, you can typically apply to your relevant funding body for help with living costs. This usually takes the form of student loans, grants or bursaries, and the amount awarded depends upon your personal circumstances and household income.

International (including EU) students won’t normally be able to claim living support through SAAS or other UK public funding bodies. You should contact the relevant authority in your country to find out if you’re eligible to receive support.

Find out about the cost of living for students at Stirling

We aim to be as flexible as possible, and offer a wide range of payment methods - including the option to pay fees by instalments. Learn more about how to pay

Intellectual, practical and transferable skills and other graduate attributes you will possess by the end of the course

• An open-minded, critical outlook that is both morally and legally well-informed.
• Negotiating and drafting skills useable in an international context with multiple committed stakeholders.
• Networking and communication skills necessary to developing robust academic and practical contributions.

Values and attitudes:

• Critically reflective commitment to addressing the problems that human rights attempt to tackle, and the problems human rights themselves generate.
• Self-starting ability to find a role within human rights institutions and organisations.
• Strong team player embedded in a human rights based approach to working with others.
• Integrity in tackling the challenges of human rights diplomacy.
• An ethical approach to study and research.