Venice School of Human Rights 2013

EIUC Venice School of Human Rights was born in 2010 with the goal of studying today’s challenges in the field of human rights. It allows its participants coming from all over the world to list these challenges and examine their reasons and possible solutions to deploy. The Venice School intends to highlight that the respect for human rights is the responsibility of all, that «Human Rights are our responsibility». Participants of EIUC’s Venice School will benefit from a faculty of well-known academics and practitioners that will merge theory into practice with the scope of creating a dynamic classroom.\r\n\r\nEIUC Venice School of Human Rights is aimed at postgraduate students from all nationalities wishing to consolidate and update their knowledge of human rights. The School is likewise open to members from national and international organisations wishing to specialise and to better understand how to integrate human rights in their daily work. Finally, EIUC Venice School is aimed at Alumni from the E.MA and all other regional masters organised under EIUC umbrella.\r\n\r\n\r\nAfter an introduction on general challenges, three topics will be examined in depth:\r\n\r\n· Freedom of Religion and Belief is a human right that has a longstanding universal recognition. The 1948 Universal Declaration guarantees its enjoyment. Today we witness more and more to a clash between two systems that oppose religious values to human rights in different areas: women's rights, gay marriages, ritual slaughtering, circumcision, protection of children... What is the status of religious freedom? How can we protect religious minorities? How can we reconcile religious freedom with other rights?\r\n\r\n· Another challenge we face nowadays, is the discrimination based on sexual orientation. Discrimination against LGBTI is extremely common. The aim during this school is to examine the rights recognised at universal and regional level and educate the participants about how to protect this particularly vulnerable category of persons.\r\n\r\n· Finally, the last topic we wish to address during this year’s School, is how international organizations should integrate human rights into their policies. The European Union has for instance underlined the need in its action plan to integrate a rights based approach within its policies. This cluster will try to familiarize the participants with the core elements of Rights Based Approach raising awareness of common obstacles and challenges and giving a methodology to apply in all phases of the programming process.

Course leader

Florence BENOIT-ROHMER, EIUC Secretary General

Target group

These courses are addressed to postgraduate students from all academic backgrounds, students from the different regional masters in human rights and democratisation, to E.MA alumni as well as to human rights practitioners willing to deepen and improve their knowledge in human rights issues.

Course aim

After a first session common to all participants dedicated to a general introductionon international systems of protection of human rights and related mechanisms, the programme will develop into the three mentioned thematic clusters (Human Rights based approach to development cooperation, Lesbians, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual rights and Religion and human rights), among which participants will have to choose.