Master 2 - Human Rights Diplomacy

The Master’s Degree in  Human Rights Diplomacy  is a multidisciplinary degree cross cutting the three key areas of International Law, International Relations and Political Sciences. These areas will intersect around major international issues such as minority issues, climate change and migration law. The basic premise of this programme is to comprehend how diplomacy, in parallel to other human rights mechanisms, can become a process of promotion and protection of human rights. Conversely, it explores how human rights may be interpreted from a diplomatic perspective, while in tandem maintaining its own degree of importance.

It will also examine the components and actors of Human Rights Diplomacy in order to understand how they interact within the different levels of a global governance, and how they appropriate the tools of international relations, among others: law, multilateralism, cooperation or public policy.

The students will acquire a better understanding of the development of international relations and international law and will have a holistic approach to the promotion and protection of human rights.

Organisation

The Master’s Degree lasts one academic year, which is divided into Semester 1 and Semester 2. The lectures will be based on 6 teaching units. The units are divided into different sections alternating between mandatory and optional courses.

Founded in 1985, the Lyon Human Rights Institute (IDHL) welcomes around a hundred students a year within UCLy. Behind the Institute’s technical and specialist courses is a team of teaching staff and a network of partners, including international and European institutions and a large number of NGOs in France and other countries.

IDHL has an intercultural dimension and welcomes students from France and countries right around the world. International students make up almost half of the student population. The teaching delivered reflects this diversity in the range of topics covered.

IDHL also boasts an extensive network of former students, with 1,800 alumni spread across five continents.

The Institute keeps abreast of the major challenges facing contemporary global society: globalisation and identity conflict, violence and reconciliation processes, new models of development and the legal ethics. This means that IDHL can provide training courses for professionals and specialists who wish to develop their knowledge and technical skills in the field of human rights issues.

This institute is part of the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLy) that "is geographically located in the heart of the city, at a crossroads, at a "confluence", and this geographical location is a good illustration of UCLy's university project: it involves creating a dialogue between the disciplines as well as opening up education to contemporary society and the challenges that characterize it: challenges related to digital development and the resulting challenges for the understanding of the "human"; challenges related to the dialogue of cultures and to globalization; environmental challenges to which all our students are very sensitive and attentive."