The discipline is intended to offer an introduction to the development and present of the international protection for human rights, both at an institutional and at a substantive level. Structured in three main parts, the discipline is exploring the protection of human rights as legal entitlements for those protected and the obligations imposed on those bound by these legal entitlements. The first part deals introduces, after an historical overview, the sources on human rights protection, starting with the universal general and specialized ones and continuing with the regional instruments.

After exploring the sources, the second part covers the substantive standards, explaining the regime of human rights; it shows the different regimes and describes the content and limits of the most important fundamental rights.

The third part is dedicated to the analysis of the various mechanisms set up by the international community to monitor the implementation of human rights guarantees and to decide individual cases brought to the attention of human rights courts and quasi-judicial bodies at the international level, focussing on the European level.