If you want to focus on Yugoslavia you can start by reading Michael Parenti’s “To Kill a Nation”. But i would personally choose Libya as a case study and point to the fact that the very same people who now pretend to be all concerned about human rights there were a) the ones who bombed and destroyed it to begin with, and b) are actively keeping out and even in some cases outright murdering refugees trying to cross the Mediterranean to escape those conditions by sinking their boats. Whenever the topic of “failed states” comes up they like to pretend like that is just something that happens inexplicably like an act of nature or due to their own fault, but really it is almost always to do with external aggression, interference, destabilization and economic strangulation, and the imperialists responsible for this are also the ones shouting the loudest about human rights after the fact, and often even at the same time as they are actively doing everything they can to sabotage and try and collapse a country with sanctions and other means. The utter shamelessness and hypocrisy of the liberal “human rights” rhetoric knows no bounds.

The first task is to interpret the question. Only then will you know what you will have to say, which will tell you what you need to research and tell you how much room you have left to write what you want to say.

Remember to define your terms. Don’t assume the reader will accept that what you think is a failed and collapsed state is a failed and collapsed state. Depending on the definition you could use Haiti, post-war Germany or France, Chile, South Africa, Iraq…

You could look at Rwanda and Gacaca trials. These trials ignored international human rights instruments. They did not conform with the rule of law. Defendants were not given representation, etc, and did not get ‘fair trials’. They were thought necessary to heal the rift after the Rwandan genocide. But the point was to help the people to move on and rebuild quickly. There are loads of sources on JSTOR, etc, about the problems and the relationship with universal human rights (and possibly imperialism).

I would caution against making the paper explicitly Marxist or shoehorning in anti-capitalist arguments just to make a point. You’ve got to answer the question head on. You can and should include some criticism, which can be Marxist, but this must flow from and with the overall argument. By all this I mean: you can freely do Marxism, but your aim is not to ‘prove’ Marxism or to ‘prove’ that Marxist authors are right.

The aim is to answer the question and meet the learning outcomes. So have a look at the learning outcomes and make sure your paper demonstrates that you have met them.

For example if you’re arguing about imperialism, it will help to provide a definition. One definition could be Lenin’s, which would have different implications for the question of imperialistic human rights than others. What those implications are, and how many you can squeeze in, depends on your overall argument and structure.

If this is the path you take, you should do the same with at least one other major definition and weigh it against Lenin’s and the implications of his definition. Then you can explain which is the most persuasive and why. If you go for an orthodox definition, one may be enough. If you go for Lenin’s, you’ll need to ‘balance’ him out. Be careful with word count; it’s okay to challenge the question and it’s terms like the, but not to the extent that you forget to use the bulk of the words to answer the question.

If you cite Parenti’s To Kill a Nation, be prepared to hear that he’s biased and that it’s not an academic source. One way to do it would be to focus on the orthodox academic literature and primary sources, explain these texts, analyse them, and highlight their flaws (this kind of criticism will be expected). (Knowing what Parenti says will help you to identify the orthodox flaws.) Then Parenti can be brought in to fill in some gaps, without over-relying on him. You might even find some support for some of Parenti’s points scattered in other literature, will will strengthen your case.

Two other things will be helpful. One, reading the marking criteria to see how you will be marked. Then you can tick off the criteria and increase your chances of getting a good mark. Second, writing a first draft as early as possible, then re-writing it one or more times before submitting it. This can mean making major structural changes, or just proofreading, depending on how much time you have and how important this paper is to you.

This isn’t a step by step guide. You can ignore all my advice! The final essay depends a lot on your sources and your argument. Don’t include things that I suggest unless it fits your argument.