SNU Human Rights Center ran the Open Course on "International Development and Human Rights" in 2013.

 

Despite increasing attention to global inequality and international development cooperation, South Korean society still tends to limit its efforts to integrate human rights and international development cooperation only to civil society organizations. The reality is that we have not had proper educations on this even when more and more students and young people are leaving for volunteer activities in international development cooperation projects. At this moment of time, SNU Human Rights Center ran an open-to-public course “International Development and Human Rights” as a part of its efforts to contribute to promotion of human-rights-based approach in the international development cooperation. This course touched many different themes including: various understandings of discourse on development, discussion on what we pursue and aim for through international development cooperation, history and current state of Korea’s international development cooperation, understanding human rights, principles and applications of human-rights-based approach in development, lived experiences from the field, corporate behaviors and human rights in developing countries, concerns regarding transparency of ODA (Official Development Assistance), and roles and responsibilities of civil society. Lecturers ranged from academics to government official, to activists working in civil society organizations. We had more than 150 participants from various backgrounds, from college students to practitioners. They gathered every Thursday evening from October to December in 2013, to gain knowledge and insights on the subject.

 

*This course was provided in Korean.