Spring 2027

The Politics of Human Rights

The Politics of Human Rights examines the origins and development of human rights in international politics, covering movements, justice after mass crimes, and humanitarian intervention.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 6

Past student reviews · Scott Straus

The course required extensive reading, and skipping it likely led to poor quiz performance. One student found the written assignments graded very harshly by TAs.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Analyze the meaning of human rights in international politics.

  • Examine the origins and development of human rights in international politics.

  • Explore international human rights movements.

  • Discuss the international search for justice after mass crimes.

  • Assess the state of a body of scholarly literature related to course themes, identify gaps in that literature, and formulate an original research question in the context of those gaps.

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

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average GPA
letter grades
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Sophomore standing

  • Sophomore standing
INTLST/POLISCI 434

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Sophomore standing

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

SCOTT STRAUS is recorded teaching in Spring 2018. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records

No records available.

Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Scott Straus

Scott Straus delivered clear, interesting lectures and engaged thoroughly with student questions, making the material accessible for those willing to put in effort.

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2018: 3.25 GPA, 64.0% A/AB (n=100 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.93 GPA, 97.4% A/AB (n=38 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Scott Straus

The course required extensive reading, and skipping it likely led to poor quiz performance. One student found the written assignments graded very harshly by TAs.

Past student reviews · Scott Straus

While the professor was well-informed, one student found the class too meticulous and time-consuming, stating they would not recommend it.

Topics

  • What human rights are
  • International human rights movements
  • International search for justice after mass crimes
  • International humanitarian intervention

Skills

  • Analyzing the meaning of human rights in international politics
  • Exploring international human rights movements
  • Discussing the international search for justice after mass crimes
  • Formulating original research questions based on gaps in scholarly literature

Grades

Latest available · Spring 2026— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Spring 2026

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Spring 2026 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1280 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
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Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

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Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "f4987ef175c9e647e673d85e081da8d82eeb1bdb82c5ecb266cd62ef983bb09a",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}