On 26 August 1789, six weeks after Parisians had stormed the Bastille, the French National Assembly passed the Declaration of the Rights of Man – a momentous document that encapsulated the liberating principles of the Enlightenment. The very first article advanced the visionary idea that: ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.’ This simple phrase asserted the supremacy of the rights of all human beings over the narrow privileges of an aristocratic elite. Henceforth, people would be defined — in theory, at least — by their common claim to freedom and equality, rather then by their allotted place in a God-given social hierarchy. Human rights had arrived.The fervour of the revolution soon abated, and, in the century and a half that followed, advances in rights took place in piecemeal fashion, mainly within the walls of the nation state. International campaigns emerged from time to time — but it was not until the Second World War that states felt compelled to develop a comprehensive international legal regime dealing with the rights of the individual. It was only then that the now-familiar global laws, treaties and tribunals devoted to upholding these rights, and punishing those who abuse them, began to take shape.This course focuses on the development of the international human rights regimes within public international law, and their impact on modern case law. Concentrating on the nine core treaties and the one core protocol, it covers the ‘political’ rights (such as the right to life, and the freedoms of expression and association); the ‘economic’ and ‘social’ rights (such as the rights to employment, education and leisure time); and some of the more recently codified rights (such as the rights of the child and of people with disabilities). Each session aims to situate international resolutions, treaties and protocols in their legal and political context, while also assessing their impact on contemporary cases drawn from jurisdictions around the world. In process, they will show that in this area of law, appearances are often deceptive, and issues are never black-and-white.