Human Rights Summer School

Human Rights Summer School

The implementation and enforcement of human rights and freedoms involves persons belonging to the legal arena, the law schools being its nursery. As a matter of fact, it is the students of law who are the potential sentinels of human rights. They are the persons supposed to be fighting the battle against tyranny and exploitation, mobilizing the mass people to voice their rights. Therefore, the need of equipping them with the necessary orientation, motivation and training in the light of international human rights standards, domestic legal framework, and prevailing human rights situation can hardly be over-emphasized. But the present curricula of the law schools are admittedly inadequate in this respect, giving rise to the necessity of introducing some other alternative and parallel method for educating and training the students. The Human Rights Summer School, an internationally recognized model, is devised to meet such necessities. Triggered by the accomplishments of the previous twelve years starting from 2000, the thirteenth Human Rights Summer School envisioned an even greater goal of achievements with the active participation of students and trainers.

Objectives of HRSS:

What the summer school focuses at is in general, the development of advocacy skills among the law students so that they can contribute to securing of the fundamental human rights of the ordinary people.

Participants and Instructors:

The trainees are a group of 48 students coming from the law faculties of different Universities from home and abroad. The participants are selected by the HRSS Admission Committee. The instructors are chosen from among the teachers of the various law faculties from home and abroad, leading human rights activists belonging to reputed organizations, and leading human rights lawyers of the Bar, to the extent that their expertise is essential to meet the objectives of the School. Besides, there is a staff of supervisors and co-coordinators who constantly work for smooth operation and functioning of the Summer School.

Special Features of HRSS

1)    A two-week intensive residential training workshop on human rights and advocacy skills.

2)    International teaching faculty

3)    Conducted by interactive method

4)    Followed by Community Law Reform program by student-researchers selected from among the school-participants

5)    Training on trial advocacy through moot court

6)    Encourage lawyering with the poor for justice