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UC Davis Courses
UC Davis offers the following courses with significant human rights content for students interested in learning more about such issues.
History
History 115E: The African Slave Trade
History of the African slave trades, from the early Egyptian and Saharan trades in the pre-modern period to the trans-Atlantic trade (15th-19th century) and the contemporary trafficking of humans.
Law, School of
Law 213A: Transnational Criminal Law
Will examine the laws responses to a particular aspect of globalization, transnational crime. The course will explore the phenomenon of transnationality and how it affects the power of nation-states, acting alone or together, to prosecute certain crimes.
Law 233: Refugee Law Seminar
Focus on the law concerning the admission of refugees into the United States. Detailed study of the Refugee Act of 1980, which is the major piece of legislation dealing with refugee admission, the international law that fueled the passage of the Act, and the various regulations promulgated by the Attorney General implementing the law. Analysis of the implementation of the Refugee Act and examination of some criticisms of the immigration bureaucracy’s implementation of the law. Some topical issues of refugee law, such as gender-based persecution, persecution based on the exercise of reproductive rights, and the persecution of lesbians and gay men.
Law 245B: Death Penalty Seminar
Offers overview of the constitutional law governing the death penalty in the United States.
Law 248B: International Human Rights
This course examines laws, theories, and institutions relating to international human rights.
Law 277: Native American Law
Legal relations between Native American tribes and the federal and state governments. Topics include the basic jurisdictional conflicts, which dominate this area of law and cover specific areas such as land rights, hunting and fishing rights, water rights, domestic relations law, and environmental protection. Religious freedom, repatriation. Issues regarding terminated and non-recognized tribes are also addressed.
Native American Studies
Native American Studies 120: Ethnopolitics of South American Indians
Social, political, cultural movements of indigenous South Americans in response to establishment, expansion of European colonialism, post-colonial nation-states. Ethnopolitical processes developed through interactions between Indians, Euroamericans. Socioethnographic analysis of main indigenous areas and the development of national societies.
Native American Studies 133: Ethnohistory of Native People of Mexico and Central America
Ethnohistorical development of pre-colonial, colonial, post-colonial Mexican and Central American indigenous people; the impact of economic and political factors on the process of cultural adaptation. Attention is given to the questions of nation-building, forced assimilation, indigenous resistance, organized political responses.
Political Science
Political Science 126: Ethnic Self-Determination and International Conflict
Compares the claims of the state and ethnic peoples in countries undergoing internal conflicts, e.g., South Africa, Northern Ireland. Analyzes the role of the international community in facilitating the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
Political Science 146A: Politics of Africa: Issues in Contemporary African Politics
Examination of the main issues in African politics since the end of the Cold War. Topics include: Strategic Security Approach, Democratization, Human Rights, HIV/AIDS, African Peacekeeping, Terrorism, Religious and Ethnic Conflict, Debt and Stalled Development.
Religious Studies
Religious Studies 90: Human Rights
Introduction to the interdisciplinary study of the origins, evolution, denial and protection of human rights.
Religious Studies 162: Introduction to Islamic Law
The development of Islamic law in the formative centuries of Islam, ca. 600-1000, as well as its adaptation to changing economic, social, and political conditions in subsequent periods. Legal schools, legal theory, the Shari’a, reformist movements, human rights.
Religious Studies 167: Iraq
Origins, causes and ethical challenges of conditions in Iraq; larger historical, cultural and ethical dimensions of mass violence, war, liberation, neocolonialism, terrorism and resistance.
Science and Society
Science and Society 7: Terrorism and War
Exploration of terrorism and war from science and social sciences perspectives. Terrorist cells and groups; biological, chemical, nuclear, and environmental terrorism; intelligence gathering and espionage; military strategy; genocide; epochal wars; clash of civilizations; nation building; and future global scenarios.