Prepare a 2,000-word research essay on a topic related to the themes of the course. Special attention should be paid to adequate citations, and it should provide a well-formed and well-defended thesis, using appropriate evidence and theoretical argument.
- note that i have already given an idea of what the paper should be on
Human rights should be the center of the focuses of this paper, please focus on its origins and how they are implemented in society.
(look below it what is required)
On the other hand, wherever people argue that human rights are violated, and ESPECIALLY where they say rights were violated and there is no law to protect them, then the argument rests on nature and not positive law. I think to focus on that - for example with refugees, undocumented migrants, some disability rights that haven’t been covered in the law, etc. would give the paper a lot of research to work with.
I would avoid social contract stuff. It is connected to natural law theory (Hobbes, Locke, etc) but the rise of social contract thinking actually marks the death of natural law theory. Social contract kills natural law thinking because under social contract theory law has authority because we agreed to it. Under natural law, theory law has authority whether you agree or not.
So sharpening up your question might involve asking a question like:
Do human rights have an “origin”?
The answer might point out that even if we have a fancy document like the UN declaration on human rights, we don’t think the UN made or invented human rights. Instead, we assume rights are eternal and don’t depend on a government to pass a law to make them real. Therefore they fit the rules for natural law. We also don’t think states can take away human rights, so they are eternal and transcendent. You can then argue that natural rights are evidence that people still believe in natural law and that the legal order still needs/uses natural law under a new name. There should be plenty of articles on each of these points. if you want to really help yourself, make sure you outline each step in your argument (I.e., first I will show x, then I will show y, and then I will show that x, y, z all add up to my conclusion). Do that in your intro, structure the paper to follow the argument and recap it in the conclusion adding new insights.
Sample Solution