POLITICAL SCIENCE 222D
HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
Tuesdays, 3:15 - 5:05 p.m.
Spring Quarter, 2000
David Abernethy Larry Diamond
Political Science 164L Hoover Tower Room, 12th Floor
723-0674, email: dba@leland 725-3420, email: diamond@hoover
Office Hours: Monday, 2-4. Hours: Weds, 2-4, & by appt.
This seminar is sponsored by the Center for African Studies in connection with its annual thematic focus, which this year is on human rights in Africa. The seminar is intended mainly for upper division undergraduates and for graduate students. It presumes previous course work on or experience with Africa, or courses or experiences relating to political development and human rights.
The course examines normative issues that are emotionally powerful and politically consequential, as well as cultural issues surrounding debates over human rights. For example, are Ahuman rights@ creations of Athe West@, and by implication limited in their relevance and application to non-Western settings? Are there distinctively African conceptions of human rights? To what extent should rights be considered collective as well as individual, social and economic as well as political? How do citizenship rights differ from those said to inhere in persons by virtue of their humanity?
Beyond the normative issues, the course also is concerned to assess the changing empirical realities of human rights in Africa. What violations of rights are most frequent, and most serious? Who is the violator, and who is the victim? Under what conditions are rights most systematically violated? What have been the responses of African governments and civil societies, and of the international community?
Finally, the seminar addresses questions of remediation and accountability. What institutions have been proposed to remedy severe abuses and protect human rights in Africa? How feasible and desirable are these institutional changes? How does a country with a terrible past deal with it: ignore what happened or come to terms with it? If the latter, what is the most appropriate and effective way to do so? What are the respective roles of African states, African NGOs, and other state and non-state actors in the international community in protecting human rights in Africa? What are the trade-offs between national sovereignty and international action to compel respect for human rights?
The class will address these and related issues through assigned readings, class discussions, optional additional sessions with invited guests, and a research paper chosen by each student in consultation with the instructors.
Course Requirements
The seminar grade is based on:
$ quality of participation in class discussions, based on careful, critical reading of weekly assignments (30%);
$ an oral report to the class on findings from each student=s research project (10%); and
$ an 18 - 20 page research paper, due Friday, June 2 (60%).
$ Students are expected to turn in a brief (one paragraph) description of their research topic on Friday, April 28 and a 2- 3 page outline of the paper (including tentative bibliography) by Friday, May 12.
Texts
$ Center for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University, Twenty-Five Human Rights Documents (New York: CSHR, Columbia University, 1994)
$ Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, eds., Democratization in Africa (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999)
$ Jack Donnelly, International Human Rights, 2nd ed. (Boulder: Westview Press, 1998)
$ Human Rights Watch, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process. (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999)
$ Human Rights Watch, Famine in Sudan, 1998. (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999)
$ Gerard Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide (NY: Columbia University Press, 1995)
$ Human Rights Watch, The Price of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigeria's Oil Producing Communities. (NY: Human Rights Watch, 1999)
$ Martin Meredith, Coming to Terms: South Africa's Search for Truth (NY: Public Affairs, 1999)
$ Claude E. Welch, Jr., Protecting Human Rights in Africa: Strategies and Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995)
$ Course Reader (Stanford Bookstore).
Schedule of Seminar Meetings And Writing Assignments
March 28 Introduction: Course Goals, Structure, Requirements
April 4 The International Framework of Human Rights: Origins, Key Documents, Recurring Controversies
April 11 The International Institutional Setting: Multilateral Agencies, States, and Non-Governmental Organizations
April 18 State, Economy, and Society in sub-Saharan Africa
April 25 Violations of Rights by Authoritarian Regimes
April 28 Research topic due
May 2 Human Rights Catastrophe: Genocide in Rwanda
May 9 Violations of Rights During Civil Wars
May 12 Research paper outline due
May 16 What Should be Done about a Terrible Past? South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
May 23 Gender Issues
May 30 Democratization: the Basis for Reducing Human Rights Violations?
June 2 Final research paper due
Worldwide Web Sites
Students are strongly encouraged to consult the following web-sites for current information on the status of freedom and human rights in individual African countries, and for overviews of the African region:
Human Rights Watch, World 2000 Report: http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/
and for other current information: http://www.hrw.org
Amnesty International, http://www.amnesty.org
and Annual Report, 1999 (for Africa): http://www.amnesty.org/ailib/aireport/ar99/afr.htm
Readings
(Numbered items indicate those in Course Reader)
April 4: The International Framework of Human Rights: Origins, Key Documents, Recurring Controversies
Donnelly, International Human Rights, chs. 1 and 2, pp. 3-35.
1 Michele R. Isay, ed. The Human Rights Reader (New York: Routledge, 1997), Introduction, pp. xv-xxxii.
Twenty-Five Human Rights Documents, Documents 1-5& 17, pp. 1-32, 119-128:
1. UN Charter, excerpts
2. Universal Declaration of Human Rights
3. International Covenant on Economic, Cultural, and Social Rights
4. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
5. Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil & Political Rights
17. African (Banjul) Charter on Human and Peoples= Rights
[To Be Assigned for Discussion: Documents 6-16]
Abdullahi An-Naim and Francis M. Deng, eds., Human Rights in Africa: Cross- Cultural Perspectives (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1990),
chs. 7, 10-13
Rhoda Howard, "Group versus Individual Identity in the African Debate on Human Rights," pp. 159-83.
Kwasi Wiredu, "An Akan Perspective on Human Rights," pp. 243-60.
Francis Deng, "A Cultural Approach to Human Rights among the Dinka,"
pp. 261-89.
Abdullahi An-Naim, "Problems of Universal Cultural Legitimacy for Human Rights," pp. 331-67.
April 11: The International Institutional Setting: Multilateral Agencies, States, and Non-Governmental Organizations
2 Thomas Risse, Stephen Ropp, and Kathryn Sikkink, eds. The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), ch. 1, "The Socialization of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practices," pp. 1-38.
3 Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report (New York: Carnegie Commission, 1997), ch. 6, "The Responsibility of the United Nations and Regional Arrangements," pp. 129-49.
Donnelly, International Human Rights, chs. 4 and 5: "The Multilateral Politics of Human Rights," and "Human Rights and Foreign Policy," pp. 51-114.
4 Peter Schraeder, United States Foreign Policy Toward Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), ch. 3, "US Foreign Policy Toward Zaire," pp. 51-113.
5 Larry Diamond,APromoting Democracy in Africa: U.S. and International Policies in Transition,@ in John W. Harbeson and Donald Rothchild, eds., Africa in World Politics, 2nd ed., (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 250-277.
6 Guy Martin, AFrancophone Africa in the Context of Franco-African Relations,@ in Harbeson and Rothchild, eds., Africa in World Politics, 2nd ed., 163-171, 175-188.
Donnelly, International Human Rights, ch. 8, AInternational Human Rights in a Post-Cold War World@, pp. 149-63.
7 Clement Nwankwo, AThe OAU and Human Rights,@ Journal of Democracy, 4, no. 3 (1993), pp. 50-54.
Welch, Protecting Human Rights in Africa, pp. 140-62.
April 18: State, Economy, and Society in sub-Saharan Africa
8 Crawford Young, "The Heritage of Colonialism," in Harbeson and Rothchild, eds., Africa in World Politics, 3rd ed, (2000), pp. 23-42.
9 Peter Anyang= Nyong=o, AAfrica: The Failure of One-Party Rule,@ Journal of Democracy volume 3, no. 1 (1992): 90-96.
10 William Reno, Warlord Politics and African States (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1998), ch. 1, "The Distinctive Political Logic of Weak States," pp. 15-44.
11 Thomas Callaghy, "Africa and the World Political Economy: More Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place," in Harbeson and Rothchild, eds., African World Politics, 3rd ed., pp. 43-82.
12 E. Gyimah-Boadi, ACivil Society in Africa,@ Journal of Democracy volume 7, no. 2 (1996): 118-132.
Welch, Protecting Human Rights in Africa, chs. 1, 2, 7, and 10 pp. 3-83, 211-237, 284-317.
(Presentations to be assigned for chapters 4 and 6 of Welch)
Recommended reading (on reserve) for students with limited knowledge of African society:
Naomi Chazan et al., Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa, 3rd ed. (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1999), chs. 3 and 4, "Social Groupings" and "Ethnicity, Class, and the State," pp. 75-133.
April 25: Violations of Rights by Authoritarian Regimes
13 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2000, AAfrica Overview: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?@
This report and various country reports covering the year 1999 may also be accessed online at: http://www.hrw.org/wr2k/
Welch, Protecting Human Rights in Africa, pp. 20-28 and ch. 8, pp. 238-63. (i.e. materials on Nigeria)
Human Rights Watch, The Price of Oil: Corporate Responsibility and Human Rights Violations in Nigeria's Oil Producing Communities
Recommended (on reserve):
[Peter M. Lewis, Pearl T. Robinson, and Barnett R. Rubin (for the Council on Foreign Relations= Center for Preventive Action), Stabilizing Nigeria: Sanctions, Incentives, and Support for Civil Society (New York: Century Foundation Press, 1998), ch. 5, AThe Role of Civil Society, pp. 93-117.
May 2: Human Rights Catastrophe: Genocide in Rwanda
Prunier, The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide, Chs. 1-6; and pp. 213-253.
14 Human Rights Watch (Alison DesForges), Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda, (New York, Human Rights Watch, 1999), Glossary, Map, pp. 199-212, 303-352.
May 9: Violations of Rights During Civil Wars
15 Francis Deng, "Reconciling Sovereignty with Responsibility: A Basis for Humanitarian Action," in Harbeson and Rothchild, eds., Africa in World Politics, 3rd ed., pp. 353-78.
Human Rights Watch, Angola Unravels: The Rise and Fall of the Lusaka Peace Process
or
Human Rights Watch, Famine in Sudan, 1998
16 Colin Scott, ALiberia: A Nation Displaced@ in Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng, The Forsaken People: Case Studies in the Internally Displaced (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1998), pp. 97-137.
May 16: What Should be Done about a Terrible Past? South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission
Meredith, Coming to Terms: South Africa's Search for Truth, Foreword, Chs 1-8, Chs 10-12 or 13-15, Chs 16, 17 and Afterword.
May 23: Gender Issues
17 Aili Mari Tripp, "Rethinking Civil Society: Gender Implications in Contemporary Tanzania", in John W. Harbeson, Donald Rothchild, and Naomi Chazan, eds., Civil Society and the State in Africa (Boulder: Lynn Rienner, 1994), pp. 149-68.
Welch, Protecting Human Rights in Africa, ch. 3, "The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices", pp. 87-106.
Florence Butegwa, AUsing the African Charter on Human and Peoples= Rights to Secure Women=s Access to Land in Africa@, in Rebecca Cook, ed., Human Rights of Women: National and International Perspectives (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), pp. 495-514.
Bettina Shell-Duncan and Ylva Hernlund, eds., Female "Circumcision" in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000), selected chapters if available.
May 30: Democratization: the Basis for Reducing Human Rights Violations?
Diamond and Plattner, Democratization in Africa, Introduction, Parts I and III, pp. ix-79, 157-244.