The climate crisis and widening social inequalities profoundly impact people and the planet, demanding urgent action. Human rights, social and environmental justice provide interconnected frameworks grounded in human dignity, equality and sustainability for understanding and addressing these challenges.  

In this course, you will examine how human rights, social, epistemic and environmental justice are understood, contested, and applied across diverse contexts. The course takes a critical, anti-oppressive and structural approach and explores the relationship between these foundational and core concepts and social work and human services practice in local and global settings.   

 The course traces the historical evolution of human rights, social and environmental justice frameworks and examines shifting understandings over time and place. Students engage with Indigenous and non-Western perspectives on human rights, sustainability, sovereignty, and self-determination. This includes centering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, practices and resistance.   

 The role of institutions, professions, and communities in perpetuating and challenging injustices is examined across a range of contemporary issues affecting marginalised communities. Examples of rights based approaches to advocacy and collective action are also explored.    

Drawing on community led movements, United Nations frameworks, interdisciplinary scholarship, and professional ethical codes, the course will equip you with critical knowledge, values, and skills needed to engage ethically with human rights and eco-social justice in contemporary practice.   

This course is a first year, first semester course that contributes to the completion of both the BP105 Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) and BH106 Bachelor of Social Work (Honours)/Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology).