Autumn course on human rights for law students
- Details
- Published: November 25, 2020
From 9 to 13 November 2020, the first of four one-week autumn courses took place as part of the “Supporting young legal talent in Armenia 2020” project, which is being financed by the German Foreign Office.
32 students from four Armenian partner universities in the project took part in the event on human rights. These universities are:
- the Faculty of Law at the Yerevan State University,
- the French University in Armenia,
- the Armenian-Russian University and
- the American University.
The event took place in a hybrid format, with participants in Armenia attending in person in a conference room and German experts and IRZ representatives joining them online.
The Permanent Representative of the Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany in Armenia, Klaus Wendelberger, opened the series of events. Other welcome speeches were given by Frank Hupfeld, IRZ Head of Section, and professor Gagik Ghazinyan, Dean of the law faculty at Yerevan State University. Sose Barseghyan, a lecturer from the department of constitutional law for the protection of human rights in Armenia at the Yerevan State University, went on to present the current situation in Armenia.
The first three days of the one-week event were taken up with lectures and discussions, while the students worked on cases in groups for the last two days.
The following speakers from Germany took part in the event:
- Prof. Dr. Carmen Thiele, European University Viadrina
- Prof. Michaela Wittinger, Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences
- Stefan von Raumer, a lawyer specialising in constitutional law and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
The themes for the first autumn course were:
- an introduction to protecting human rights
- the right to respect for private and family life
- freedom of thought, belief and religion
- freedom of expression
- the ECHR: Origins, content, significance for international and national laws
- the assessment of violations of the convention by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR): Scope of protection, intervention, limiting provisions
- the prohibition of discrimination (article 14 ECHR) and the general principle of the 12th additional protocol
- complaints submitted to the ECtHR
- human rights - the practical aspect from a lawyer's point of view
- how to draw up a complaint to submit to the ECtHR
The students were very active and committed to the discussions and group work during the autumn course. The event was so successful that some interested parties signed up to subsequent courses even before the first instalment was over. This is particularly remarkable in view of the current political developments and recent events in Armenia. The project will continue with three more autumn courses:
- European law: 16 to 20 November 2020
- constitutional law: 23 to 27 November 2020
- media law: 25 to 29 January 2021
About the project
The “Supporting young legal talent in Armenia 2020” project is being financed by the German Foreign Office to support the “Development of the partnership with civil society in Eastern Partnership countries and Russia” and is aimed at law students from the above-mentioned partner universities in the project. After all, law students will play a key role as disseminators in shaping the future justice system in Armenia. The four one-week autumn courses will teach young people about four key areas of the law: human rights, constitutional law, European law and media law. Discussions and workshops will focus on the basics of these areas of the law and their application within the Armenian legal context.
