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ORGANIZING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS CHANGE
P11.2225
January 8-10, 2013
NYU Wagner
Instructor: William F. Schulz
Teddy Roosevelt claimed that the only two ways to get somebody to do what you wanted them to do was to “shoot ‘em or talk ‘em to death.” Saul Alinsky, the great community organizer, had a bit more sophisticated view. Among his “Rules for Radicals” was this one: “Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
This course will range in focus from the theoretical and strategic to the detailed and practical. It will critically examine the major resources available for bringing about human rights change, from public exposure to economic sanctions, from legal challenges to new technologies to military intervention, and it will help students learn to formulate campaigns and organizing efforts to foster change at the global, regional, national and local levels.
By the end of the course we will have added a myriad of techniques to Roosevelt’s two and learned how, a la Alinsky, to exploit our adversaries’ misperceptions as readily as we do their strategic blunders.
Access to Instructor:
As an Adjunct Assistant Professor based in the Boston area, I am not regularly at Wagner but you can reach me at any time before or after the course through my personal email address,, or, in cases of urgent matters, on my cell (646-526-3571). Feel free to let me know how I can be of help to you.
Structure of the Class:
Our three days together will be structured as follows: the morning of each day will be devoted to considering major techniques for implementing human rights change, such as community organizing, NGO advocacy, legal mechanisms, etc. The class will be almost exclusively discussion-oriented so your having read the assigned material ahead of time is very important.
During the afternoonswe will address specific case studies that you will supply (see course requirement #3 below). Each student will make a presentation on a local, national or international human rights problem of his/her choosing along with proposed strategy and tactics for ameliorating that problem and the class will then give feedback on the presentations.
We will take a break each mid-morning and afternoon and a one-hour break for lunch.
Course Requirements:
(1) Completion of required reading.
(2) Consistent attendance and participation in class discussion. (20% of grade) [I use your class participation as a way to resolve disparities in your grades on the papers described in (3) and (4) below. If, for example, you get an “A” on paper (3) and an “A minus” on paper (4) but have participated well in class, your final grade for the course will be an “A.” If you have not participated regularly, it would be an “A minus.”]
(3) A 10-15 minute presentation in class of a human rights problem situation of your choice (local, national or international). Please submit to me at the email address above by no later than Friday, January 4, 2013, a brief description of the problem you propose to address so I can insure that there are no duplications in topic. (First come, first served on topics.) With regard to your problem, please structure your presentation as follows:
Describe the problem, providing history and background as appropriate
Describe the players involved
Describe the goal to be achieved
Describe the points of leverage of the protagonists seeking to achieve that goal
Describe the obstacles in the way of that achievement
Suggest one or more strategies for overcoming those obstacles and achieving
that goal
Suggest tactics for implementing those strategies.
The presentation you give may then be revised in light of class discussion and feedback and must then be submitted in the form of a 10-12 page paper by February 1, 2013. (40% of grade). (A good resource for ideas for human rights tactics is the website and its book entitled New Tactics in Human Rights: A Resource for Practitioners that can be downloaded through that website. Click on “Resources and Tools;” “Workbook.”)
(4) A 10-12 page paper reflecting upon and evaluating a major technique of human rights change. Examples of appropriate topics would be “What does it take to achieve effective community organizing?” “How can the media help or hinder the accomplishment of human rights change?” “What are the strengths and weaknesses of human rights NGOs?” “What will it take for the International Criminal Court to be regarded as successful?” “Under what circumstances and conditions can economic and/or other sanctions bring about human rights change?” “What are the strengths and weaknesses of strategic nonviolent organizing?” “When, if ever, is military intervention justified to prevent or end human rights crimes?” You may choose one of these questions (in which case you do not need to get my approval of your topic) or you may feel free to suggest an alternative for approval anytime before February 1, 2013. This paper is due by February 15, 2013. (40% of grade.)
Policy on Late Papers
If you do not believe you can submit a paper required above in (3) and (4) by the stated deadline, you are welcome to request an extension and propose a substitute deadline. You must provide a credible reason but I am pretty liberal about accepting your requests. On the other hand, if you have not arranged for a new deadline and your paper is late or if you fail to meet the substitute deadline you and I have agreed upon, then you will be docked one grade for every three days or portion thereof that your paper is late. So, for example, if it is two days late and I initially grade it an “A,” you will instead receive an “A minus” for that paper. If it is seven days late and I initially grade it an “A,” you will receive a “B,” etc.
Books:
You will need to access the following four books. You can purchase them at the NYU Bookstore. All other readings are available online.
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010).
Claude, Richard Pierre and Weston, Burns H., Human Rights in the World Community: Issues and Action (Third Edition) (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006)
Dobson, William J., The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2012).
Hunt, Lynn, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2007)
Outline of Class Sessions and Required Readings:
Tuesday, January 8:
Morning:
The Fundamentals of Community Organizing
The Power of Shaming
The Work of Human Rights NGOs
Afternoon:
Case Studies
***
Required Readings:
“Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals,”
Appiah, Kwame Anthony, The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen
Hunt, Lynn, Inventing Human Rights: A History
Claude, Richard Pierre, “What Do Human Rights NGOs Do?,” Chapter 8, Essay #31 in Claude and Weston.
Wednesday, January 9:
Morning:
Development and Human Rights
Legal Norms and Punishment
Sanctions, Economic and Otherwise
Afternoon:
Case Studies
***
Required Reading:
Asbjorn Eide, “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as Human Rights,” Chapter 3, Essay #13, and George Kent, “Food is a Human Right,” Chapter 3, Essay #15 in Claude and Weston
Koh, Harold Hongju, “How Is International Human Rights Law Enforced?”, Chapter 5, Essay #24; Bayefsky, Anne F., “Making the Human Rights Treaties Work,” Chapter 5, Essay #25; Marks, Steven P., “The United Nations and Human Rights,” Chapter 6, Essay #26; Shelton, Dinah, “The Promise of Regional Human Rights Systems,” Chapter 6, Essay #27; and Ratner, Michael, “Civil Remedies for Gross Human Rights Violations,” Chapter 7, Essay #29, in Claude and Weston.
“The International Criminal Court,”
About CJA [Center for Justice and Accountability],” “Cases” at
Elliott, Kimberly Ann; Hufbauer,Gary Clyde and Oegg, Barbara, “Sanctions,”
Paul, James A., “Sixteen Policy Recommendations on Sanctions,”
Thursday, January 10:
Morning:
New Tools for Human Rights Advocacy
Strategic Nonviolent Organizing
Military Intervention
Afternoon:
Case Studies
***
Required Reading:
Dobson, William J., The Dictator’s Learning Curve: Inside the Global Battle for Democracy (New York: Doubleday, 2012).
Schulz, William F, and Dreier, Sarah: New Tools for Old traumas: Using 21st Century Technologies to Combat Human Rights Atrocities,
Helvey, Robert, “On Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: Thinking About the Fundamentals,”
Falk, Richard, “Humanitarian Intervention: Imperatives and Problematics,” Chapter 7,
Essay #30, in Claude and Weston.
About The Instructor:
From the refugee camps of Darfur, Sudan, to the poorest villages in India; from the prison cells of Monrovia, Liberia, to the business suites of Hong Kong to Louisiana’s death row, Dr. William F. Schulz has traveled the globe in pursuit of a world free from human rights violations. As Executive Director of Amnesty International USA from 1994-2006, Dr. Schulz headed the American section of the world’s oldest and largest international human rights organization.
Currently Dr. Schulz is President and CEO of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in Cambridge, MA
During his twelve years at Amnesty, Dr. Schulz led missions to Liberia, Tunisia, Northern Ireland, and Sudan. He also traveled tens of thousands miles in the United States promoting human rights causes and was frequently quoted in the media. He is the author of two books on human rights, In Our Own Best Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All (2001, Beacon Press) and Tainted Legacy: 9/11 and the Ruin of Human Rights (2003, Nation Books); and the contributing editor of The Phenomenon of Torture: Readings and Commentary (2007, University of Pennsylvania Press) and The Future of Human Rights: US Policy for a New Era (2008, University of Pennsylvania Press). All of this prompted the New York Review of Books to say in 2002, "William Schulz…has done more than anyone in the American human rights movement to make human rights issues known in the United States."
An ordained Unitarian Universalist minister, Dr. Schulz came to Amnesty after eight years (1985-93) as President of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. He has served on the boards of People for the American Way, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and many other organizations.
Dr. Schulz is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College, holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago and the Doctor of Ministry degree from Meadville/Lombard Theological School (at the University of Chicago) as well as eight honorary degrees.