This course was indeed challenging, however it is very informational. The readings provided were very insightful, and furthermore the tasks and tests were very simple and straight to the point. I have learned a lot about the theories that make up international relations and the concepts that international relations explores. One topic that stood out the most to me, was the theory of constructivism. The way ideas, norms and identities shape our realities and how it is never fixed and is bound to change over time. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that international relations is the field of study where scholars like you guys are making theories and hypotheses to further the understanding of the interactions between states.

To be honest, I left everything till last minute. As a result, it was very stressful, however going through 12 weeks worth of readings and writing out several papers and blogs, it allowed me to gain a complete understanding in International Relations.

The tasks that I have done and grading:

These are my self gradings as well as the final grade that I feel that I deserve based on my work given in.

In my opinion, while this raised happiness and hope all around the world. Like a lot of politicians, it fails to fulfill its promise. To this day, millions of people around the world are denied of their human rights for example, The Xinjian re-education camps in china where they are holding at an estimate of 1.5 million Uighurs, who are recognized as ethnic minorities. According to PBS, “members of the Muslim minority say that they were detained, interrogated and beaten because of their religion. Many say it is clear–they were interned, not ‘re-educated'”, which is a clear violation of many articles of the UDHR like Article 18, “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.”

This is interesting to me because, according to USNEWS, “China is not only a signatory to the UDHR, but also played an important role in writing it”, which makes me question why China is not being punished for violating this declaration of human rights. What is the use of drafting so many articles and passing so many laws if big powers like China can ignore it without much consequence?

Source:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/features/uighurs/

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2014/01/17/china-has-no-excuse-for-its-poor-human-rights-record