HREQ 2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Precedent, Categorical Imperative, Hans Kelsen

• School: York University
• Department: Human Rights and Equity Studies
• Course: HREQ 2010
• Professor: Paul Brienza

Document Summary

The relationship between human rights and international law. The central focus is on how we justify human rights in international law. Informs judges how to behave when it comes to certain issues. One of the claims of international law is that there is a basic primary law, a moral one, underneath it, which should motivate judges and others when thinking about human rights. There is a normative component to human rights: in the tradition of common law and international treaties and conventions, there is an emergent and developing moral theory as well (not separate from, but rather, grounded in international law) Asked questions that forced people to look at what their own positioning and morality was. He came up with this idea of a constant testing and questioning of ourselves. Constant interrogation of our own premises that we should not be so secure in our own judgments.