Undergraduate Module Descriptor

LAW3171: Human Rights and Human Dignity

This module descriptor refers to the 2018/9 academic year.

Module Aims

The module's aim is to take you 'behind the scenes' of the development of a new area of legal knowledge, and give you the opportunity to develop familiarity with some of the methodological and theoretical issues involved in the construction of a new legal concept by scholars and judges. The module focuses on key issues raised in the international discussion on human dignity so as to anchor your reflection in a set of examples, while providing you with a range of specific issues illustrating this concept’s actual and potential uses in law.

The module is suitable for students interested in constitutional law, human rights law, comparative law, legal theory and critical thinking. By engaging you with methodological issues and discussing the apparent paradoxes and difficulties of the concept of dignity, the module is also suitable for students who aspire to practise law, especially in the area of human rights.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)
This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.
On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills	1. Demonstrate detailed knowledge of the selected issues on human dignity considered in the module and a substantial range of major concepts, values and principles relevant to its application; 2. Demonstrate critical awareness of methodological dimensions of the study of human dignity as a legal concept; 3. Demonstrate critical awareness of a wide range of legal, political, social and contextual implications of the areas of human dignity studied;
Discipline-Specific Skills	4. Define complex legal problems, identify their relative significance and select appropriate methods for investigating and critically evaluating them; 5. Integrate and assess information from primary and secondary legal sources using appropriate interpretative techniques;
Personal and Key Skills	6. Manage relevant learning resources and to develop own arguments and opinions with minimum guidance; 7. Work independently and to manage time efficiently in preparing for scheduled learning activities, exercises and assessments.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module’s precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

Introduction to the concept of human dignity: Historical and philosophical origins, post-1945 context, key questions and problems
Human dignity and human rights: human dignity as foundation of human rights, selected jurisdictions (e.g. Germany, ECHR, EU and UK), significance of human dignity as foundation of human rights; unresolved questions
Specific human dignity and human rights tensions and synergies, e.g. human dignity and equality, human dignity and privacy – human dignity and life – human dignity and prohibition of torture
Human dignity conumdrums, crises and potentials, e.g. human dignity v autonomy; ‘illiberal’ models of human dignity; human dignity, time and environmental justice; dignity of the non-humans.

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
28.5	121.5	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	24	12 x 2 hour lectures
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	4.5	3 x 1.5 hour workshops
Guided Independent Study	48	Study group for lecture preparation and work
Guided independent study	18	Workshop Preparation
Guided independent study	55.5	Independent reading and research

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=3362

How this Module is Assessed

In the tables below, you will see reference to 'ILO's. An ILO is an Intended Learning Outcome - see Aims and Learning Outcomes for details of the ILOs for this module.

Formative Assessment

A formative assessment is designed to give you feedback on your understanding of the module content but it will not count towards your mark for the module.

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Essay outline and a fully drafted introduction addressing formative essay title.	1000 words	1-7	i) Individual comments on feedback sheet ii) General Class discussion

Summative Assessment

A summative assessment counts towards your mark for the module. The table below tells you what percentage of your mark will come from which type of assessment.

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
100	0	0

...and this table provides further details on the summative assessments for this module.

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Essay	100	3,500 words	1-7	i) Individual feedback sheet and provisional grade.

Re-assessment

Re-assessment takes place when the summative assessment has not been completed by the original deadline, and the student has been allowed to refer or defer it to a later date (this only happens following certain criteria and is always subject to exam board approval). For obvious reasons, re-assessments cannot be the same as the original assessment and so these alternatives are set. In cases where the form of assessment is the same, the content will nevertheless be different.

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Essay	Essay (3,500 words)	1-7	August/September reassessment period

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

A Barak, Human Dignity: The Constitutional Value and the Constitutional Right (CUP, 2015)

E Daly, Dignity Rights: Courts, Constitutions and the Worth of the Human Person (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)

C Dupré, Importing the Law in Post-communist transitions, The Hungarian constitutional court and the right to human dignity(Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2003)

C Dupré, The Age of Dignity: Human Rights and Constitutionalism in Europe (Bloomsbury/Hart, 2015)

G Kateb, Human Dignity (Harvard University Press, 2011)

C McCrudden (ed), Understanding Dignity (OUP, 2013)

M Düwell et al (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Human Dignity (CUP, 2014)