Ohlin's Human Rights Law: Evolving Doctrine and Practice

Ohlin’s Human Rights Law: Evolving Doctrine and Practice provides a concise and compelling overview of the subject, suitable for use in the introductory Human Rights class offered by almost every law school in the country. This right-sized casebook is trim and logically organized, providing instructors with a clearly sequenced Table of Contents that doubles as a syllabus for the class, giving the instructor the option to proceed through the chapters from beginning to end without requiring picking and choosing of different chapters to get the material to fit within a three-credit format most often used for this course.

The materials focus on cases and reports where human rights norms are contested and applied by courts, tribunals, committees and commissions, thus highlighting for students the relevance of human rights norms for legal practice and adjudication. Key materials include:

• An introductory framework chapter that presents the key concepts and ideas (often in tension with each other) that will be used by the student throughout the rest of the casebook and the course. These include natural law versus positive law, positive versus negative obligations, individual dignity versus public interests, state responsibility versus individual accountability, and so on.
• Some chapters focus on process, while other chapters focus on the substance and content of human rights norms, but regardless, each chapter explores concrete areas where human rights law adds specificity to international and domestic law.
• Key chapters on both regional and domestic enforcement of human rights law, supplementing the more common materials on international enforcement mechanisms.
• A focus on the growing harmonization of human rights litigation across jurisdictions, with a specific focus on the common use of the following key doctrinal concepts: state interests, balancing and proportionality, necessity, and margin of appreciation.
• Plenty of material on armed conflict and atrocity, and the interaction between human rights law, humanitarian law, domestic law, and international criminal law. These cases highlight for students the immense stakes, for states and individuals alike, in this area of the law.