PURPOSE

The purpose of POLS 675c Topics in Public Policy: Nutrition Rights is to study the working of human rights systems through close examination of the human right to food and nutrition.

Over the last half-century, human rights advocates have emphasized civil and political rights, but work on economic and social rights is
now progressing rapidly. The human right to adequate food and nutrition, in particular, is being clarified under an initiative led
by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Many agencies at both national and global levels are recognizing the right and working to assure its realization. This course examines the
meaning and the application of the human right to adequate food and nutrition.

Participants should gain an understanding of recent developments in nutrition rights, and also develop skill in applying the nutrition
rights approach in specific contexts. Goals include

Learning about . . .

* the nature of rights systems generally;
* the content and character of the international human rights
system, in the framework of international law;
* the historical foundations of the human right to food and
nutrition;
* the meaning of the human right to food and nutrition as it
has been clarified since the World Food Summit of 1996;
* the application of the nutrition rights approach in various
contexts, e.g., in specific countries, and in relation to
refugees, infants, drinking water, prisons, etc.

And, with these foundations, building skills in . . .

* analyzing concrete situations to identify violations of the
human right to food and nutrition;
* formulating proposals for policy and legislation that would
operationalize the realization of the human right to food and
nutrition in specific contexts.

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PEDAGOGY

This is an on-line course, using the Yahoo! Groups software. After the instructor receives your email address and tells egroups.com that
you are to be admitted, you will be able to access the web site (or "home page") for the course, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pols675c As a participant in this course, you will need to check the website and/or your email every
few days. You will want to create a shortcut for this URL (Universal Resource Locator) on your computer desktop. If you are likely to be
participating in the course from several different computers, you could put the shortcut onto a diskette.