Study

What does the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) have to do with the problem of women and children refugees, questions of statelessness, forced labor, wartime atrocities, human rights, refugee camps, and the history of surveillance and containment?In this class, we will examine these questions in relation to the destruction of slavery and the conduct of hostilities (jus in bello) in the Civil War, focusing on enslaved and freed women and children who became wartime refugees. We will study and analyze the humanitarian and legal issues that arose in response to their flight and the establishment and management of refugee camps across the South. In the absence of the Geneva Accords of 1949 and the additional UN Protocols at the center of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), how did the U.S. respond to this refugee problem? What rights did congressional law, executive and war department decrees, and the Lieber Code allow and disallow? The study of black refugees and the establishment of refugee camps in the Civil War raise new questions about the origins of refugee and human rights law and the construction of human rights archives.The larger objective of the course is to place the story of black refugees in the Civil War within the broader context of refugee studies, human rights, and the law.

Fall 2015

Course Number	Course Credits	Evaluation Method	Instructor
794.01	Course Credits 2		Thavolia Glymph
Sakai site: https://sakai.duke.edu/portal/site/LAW.794.01.F15
Email list: LAW.794.01.F15@sakai.duke.edu