History with Human Rights

History with human rights is a combination that enriches both subjects. History develops your ability to investigate the past through primary sources, to understand how events are conditioned by their contexts, and to construct sustained arguments about how societies change over time. Human rights provides a framework for evaluating past and present practices against universal standards of dignity, freedom, and justice, and brings an ethical urgency to historical inquiry.

The combination invites you to ask not only what happened but whether it was just, and to understand how the human rights frameworks we have today emerged from specific historical struggles and atrocities.

At the University of Essex, this three-year full-time programme combines the historical study of political, social, and cultural change with critical engagement in human rights. Essex is a university with a distinctive history of commitment to human rights, and the combination benefits from that institutional culture. You will study historical periods and themes alongside the development and application of international human rights law and norms, engaging with questions of genocide, colonial violence, women's rights, refugee law, and the political and legal mechanisms through which human rights are protected or violated.

Graduates from history with human rights programmes go on to careers in human rights organisations, NGOs, the legal profession, journalism, the civil service, international organisations, research, and education. The combination of historical analytical depth and human rights knowledge is particularly valued by organisations working on justice, accountability, and international development. Further study at postgraduate level in human rights law, international relations, history, or transitional justice is a natural route for those wishing to develop specialist expertise.