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2012年1月 月次レポート（楊殿閣 アメリカ）
Location: Columbia University
Time: January, 2012
Name: Denka Yanagi
ITP Monthly Report
During this winter vacation, I took part in an English language program which was held in one of Columbia University's schools. This program began teaching English to international students in 1911. I was only able to attend a winter intensive class in the school because of my other research activity schedule. This winter intensive program was designed to occupy a short period of time, about two weeks, but it was still very helpful to me in brushing up my English skills. 
I have been taking part in a postgraduate course in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) after my finishing the winter intensive English language program. The main purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the legal regime that exists to respect, protect, and fulfil human rights. The reason why I am keen to join this course is that a key point of my major study, education rights, is also thought of as an issue of human rights and the argument in favor of universal education is frequently discussed as a subset of human rights in the field of international development. This is a pragmatic class, and it approaches human rights law from a practitioner's perspective. Thus students can think about international human rights through laws, institutions, and advocacy strategies. In this class, we learn the international human rights law, we review the range of substantive and procedural rights and the mechanisms and gaps in their enforcement, but we also explore tools for assessing when, where and how law matters. Furthermore, we have one weekly recitation besides the lecture, with a focus on applied analysis of the formal human rights systems at the international, regional and national level. In this recitation, we are trying to use case study models for exploring the way that legal theories in human rights are advanced. I believe that this experience I have had at SIPA matches the aims of the postgraduate course of TUFS; to develop professionals with high-level expertise, and highly creative and energetic researchers.
Columbia University has many interesting academic events and conferences, in which many guests or panel speakers are invited from over the world. I have been attending those that concern my research topic. Academic theories always come out of on-going debate among huge numbers of thinkers. A new idea can emerge from within a pool of ideas. It is important to borrow ideas from those scholars and incorporate them into my study and create new ones.
