Guidelines for Writing an Essay on International Human Rights Law

Extenuating Circumstances
Where illness or other verifiable cause prevent timely submission of the summative assessments, you are required to contact the Unicaf Extenuating Circumstances team in the first instance, for further information on how to make an appropriate request for consideration of your circumstances. It is important to note that any request must be made to the mentioned team in advance of the originally stipulated deadlines, otherwise shall be considered as late and will not be reviewed further unless valid independent evidence exists to support that you could not have reasonably gotten in touch any sooner.

 

Academic misconduct including plagiarism
By submitting your assignments, you acknowledge that you have read and agree with the above statements. 

General guidance: Your assignments should be word processed (handwritten assignments are not accepted), using time new roman size 12 font, double spaced, with numbered pages and your student number printed as a footer on every page. The word limits stated for these assignments excludes the reference list at the end of the assignments but includes all text in the main body of the assignment (including direct quotations, in-text citations, footnotes, tables, diagrams and graphs). Please be aware that exceeding the word count limit will affect the academic judgement of the piece of work and may result in the award of lower marks. Appendices are not considered a supplement, and thus, will not be assessed as part of the content of the assignments. As such, they will not contribute to the grades awarded; however it may be appropriate to use an Appendices section for the Essay, which is a useful reference for the reader. Please note that appendices are not included in the word count.

The majority of references should come from primary sources (e.g., journal articles, conference papers, reports, etc.) although you can also utilise area specific textbooks.

In the Essay, you must ensure that you use the OSCOLA style of referencing. Please indicate the word count length at the end of your assignments. 

Marking and assessment: Your summative assessment consist of one related element: an Essay (5,000 word-equivalent), due at the end of Week 8. The element will be graded out of 100 and in the overall passing grade is 50%.

 

Learning outcomes assessed
1. Demonstrate understanding of core principles of international human rights law
2. Critically use and assess international human rights primary and secondary sources.
3. Critically analyse the key contemporary debates within international human rights law.

Academic misconduct including plagiarism

 

Assessment guidelines
Produce a 5000-word critical essay exploring a relevant human rights issue (+/- 10%) (Excluding the list of references) which offers students the ability to demonstrate their developing knowledge and application of the international human rights law as covered within weeks of their study. It also encourages students to develop their thoughts and perspectives on International human rights law theories and concepts.

Task
A critical essay exploring relevant human rights issues of no more than 5000 words. Students  can choose their own essay with the approval of their module tutor or choose from the titles found here below:

1. “The exclusion of any group – whether on the basis of gender, class, sexual orientation, religion or race- involves cultural definitions of the members of that
group as less than fully human.” (Bunch 1995, 12) Critically discuss.
2. “Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man presents his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire
population.” (Albert Einstein) Critically discuss. 

The structure of a critical essay
The main features of a critical essay are described below to provide a general guide. These should be used in conjunction with the instructions or guidelines provided by your module tutor.

 

Title Page
This should briefly but explicitly describe the purpose of the report (if this is not obvious from he title of the work); remember to add your name and student number/assessment number, and which assessment it pertains to.

 

Contents (Table of Contents)
The contents page should list the different chapters and/or headings together with the page numbers. Your contents page should be presented in such a way that the reader can quickly scan the list of headings and locate a particular part of the report. You may want to number chapter headings and subheadings in addition to providing page references. Whatever numbering system you use, be sure that it is clear and consistent throughout.

Contents (Table of Contents)
The contents page should list the different chapters and/or headings together with the page numbers. Your contents page should be presented in such a way that the reader can quickly scan the list of headings and locate a particular part of the report. You may want to number chapter headings and subheadings in addition to providing page references. Whatever numbering system you use, be sure that it is clear and consistent throughout.

 

Literature Review
The State of the Art, also known as the Literature Review (or Foundations), serves a cluster of very important aims. First of all, it demonstrates that you have built a solid knowledge of the field where the research is taking place, that you are familiar with the main issues at stake, and that you have critically identified and evaluated the key literature. On the other hand, it shows that you have created an innovative and coherent view integrating and synthesizing the main aspects of the field, so that you can now put into perspective the new direction that you propose to explore. The State of the Art must give credit to the authors who laid the groundwork for your research, so that when, in the following chapter, your research objectives are further clarified, the reader is able to recognize beyond doubt that what you are 10 attempting to do has not been done in the past and that your research will likely make a significant contribution to the literature. It should be accompanied by comprehensive references, which you list at the end of the proposal. Ideally, all influential books, book chapters, papers and other texts produced in the knowledge domain you are exploring, which are of importance for your work, should be mentioned here and listed at the end of the proposal.

You should follow very strictly the appropriate referencing conventions and make sure that no document you refer to is missing in the final list of references, nor vice versa. The choice of referencing conventions may depend on the specific field where your research is located.

Discussion
The main body of the essay is where you discuss your material. The literature and evidence you have gathered should be summarised, analysed and discussed with specific reference to the problem or issue. If your discussion section is lengthy you might divide it into section headings. Your points should be grouped and arranged in an order that is logical and easy to follow. Use headings and subheadings to create a clear structure for your material. As with the whole report, all sources used should be acknowledged and correctly referenced (remember to use the most credible resources available).

 

Conclusion
In the conclusion you should show the overall significance of what has been covered. You may want to remind the reader of the most important points that have been made in the report or highlight what you consider to be the most central issues or findings. However, no new material should be introduced in the conclusion. Remember to specifically answer the initial questions posed.

Appendices
Under this heading you should include all the supporting information you have used that is not  published. This might include tables, graphs, or transcripts. Refer to the appendices in the body of your report.