Norms of Humanity

Module Title: Norms of Humanity 

Module Leader: Dr Giovanni Mantilla 

Overview:  

This module focuses on the “humanization” of world politics and global governance through a variety of “humanity-centred” legal regimes, a process that began in the nineteenth century but which deepened throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We explore a range of questions to do with the politics of the process of normative change (toward humanization) and the operation, effects, problems, and limits of some of the most prominent strands of humanity-oriented rules, including human rights, humanitarian law, and international criminal law. What explains the turn to “humanity”? Who has led it and how did it come to be? How can such normative change be better described and theorized? How do various “norms of humanity” work, what are their virtues and their limits? These are some of the broad questions guiding the choice of materials and our reflections.