Human Rights and Social Justice (Taught)

This interdisciplinary Master’s is rooted in Goldsmiths’ strengths in critical theory and practice-based approaches to social change. Bringing together legal, sociological and critical perspectives, the programme equips you to understand, question and transform how human rights work in theory, in practice and in everyday struggles for justice.

• Choose whether to study the MA or LLM pathway, giving you the unique opportunity to specialise either in sociological approaches to human rights (MA) or in legal study (LLM). Across both pathways, you will engage with international and domestic legal frameworks and the lived realities of inequality, state violence, displacement, climate breakdown and resistance.

• Develop advanced critical knowledge of human rights and social justice through an interdisciplinary curriculum that brings together legal, sociological and critical theoretical perspectives.

• Tailor your studies to your area of interest. On both the MA and LLM pathways, you will have access to a broad range of optional modules that can help prepare you for careers in human rights law and policy, advocacy, research, activism or doctoral study.

• Engage with urgent global challenges, including migration and borders, racial capitalism, climate breakdown, state violence, tech governance and global inequality, informed by decolonial, feminist and political economy perspectives.

• Gain hands-on professional experience through practice-based clinics, applied projects and placements with NGOs, grassroots organisations and community partners, connecting academic study to real-world struggles for justice.

• Develop advanced research and communication skills used across human rights law, policy, advocacy and activism, including ethical research design, evidence gathering, writing for diverse audiences and collaborative working.

• Learn from leading scholars and practitioners in human rights and social justice, with teaching by guest lectures from activists, artists and professionals working in the field.