Human Rights and Democracy Skriv ut

The Human Rights and Democracy Programme at THS (Stockholm School of Theology) is a two-year programme comprising a number of different courses dealing with various aspects of Human Rights and Democracy.

For THS’s part, the creation of the Human Rights and Democracy programme can be seen as a result of the fact that the principals of the school itself – the Baptist Union and the  Mission Covenant Church – have historically been engaged in issues related to the development of democracy as well as a commitment to international development and to the safeguarding of individual rights and freedoms.

The Human Rights and Democracy Programme is run by THS but the programme has its own steering committee where THS co-operates with the Swedish NGO Foundation for Human Rights and the Academy of Democracy (a network of Swedish organisations).

The three organisations began planning for the programme in 1995, and the first courses were offered in 1997. At first, there was only one year of courses, while the current two-year programme started in 2003.

By means of an interdisciplinary curriculum, THS has the ambition of giving to our students a rather thorough knowledge of the technical features of the human rights systems as well as a deeper insight into dilemmas, challenges and moral principles related to human rights and democracy. Thus, in the course of the programme, issues dealt with include more legalistic topics, such as international treaties and systems for the protection of human rights in addition to ethics and other philosophical perspectives.

THS strives towards offering a complement to the academic perspective in the form of a more practical, case-oriented approach. To achieve these ambitions, many of our lecturers are practitioners of one kind or another. Some are professional journalists or lawyers, others civil servants in governmental offices or activists from non-governmental organisations.

The Human rights and democracy programme consists of several smaller units. Students can follow the whole programme or just one individual unit. Students finishing the two-year programme receive a University Diploma in Human Rights. Courses offered include: Equal Value and Equal Rights, Freedom of Religion and Conscience, Human Rights and the Challenges of Philosophy, Women and Human Rights, The Rights of the Child, Human Rights Conventions as Practical Tools, The Role of NGOs in promoting Human Rights.