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Given the crucial importance of a well-educated citizenry to the proper functioning of a modern, democratic, rule-of-law state, legal education remains a core part of COLPI’s activities. COLPI’s activities in this area are not only directed toward producing well-trained lawyers, but also a well-informed public ready to actively participate in, and contribute to the development of, the democratic system. |
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Faculty Training in Former Soviet Union |
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COLPI provides comprehensive support to university law faculties in CEE and the fSU. COLPI’s fSU faculty training program began in 1995. In these four years, more than 300 law teachers from more than 80 universities have participated in the bi-annual two-week sessions. Each session consists of two sections of 20 to 25 participants. The substantive legal topic is changed for every session. This program is the only opportunity for law professors from the fSU to receive instruction in Russian on teaching methodologies, innovative new approaches to teaching legal courses, and methods for curricula improvement. The Program also provides the participants with access to COLPI’s and CEU’s English and Russian language legal information and educational resources. |
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Legal Education in Ex-Yugoslavia |
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COLPI’s legal education programs for the former Yugoslavia began four years ago. These programs now focus on faculty training that targets young faculty members at all levels of experience and address their needs in accordance to the specific characteristics of the country in which they are situated. |
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Law Library Development |
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COLPI supports the start-up and development of law libraries and legal information centres. COLPI’s regional activities to support these libraries and centres are aimed at providing methodological training and guidance to law librarians and the centres’ managers. |
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Clinical Legal Education |
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In general, the staff of law school clinical programs are law students who work with practicing lawyers to provide legal advice to members of the public. COLPI projects support the introduction of clinics into the curriculum of law schools in other CEE countries, or alternatively, external clinics in cooperation with leading human rights advocacy non-governmental group and advocates. These programs are primarily designed to provide free legal aid to the weakest groups in society. They also assist law students in developing necessary, practical legal skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving, and communication skills, along with a consciousness of the legal profession’s role in society. As a direct result of this program, legal aid clinics have been established by more than 20 law faculties in 15 different countries. These clinics operate as a part of the law schools’ curricula. The clinic allows law students to provide legal aid under the guidance of a faculty member to pre-selected groups of people (the most vulnerable groups in society) free of charge. COLPI continues to provide on-going capacity-building support to existing clinics and continues its efforts to promote the establishment of new clinics. COLPI’s activities include: a regional colloquium focusing on teaching methods in clinics; sub-regional workshops for law faculty members; and, site visits within the region so that faculty members can learn from other clinics. COLPI continues to support the student run regional clinical law journal (“Klinika”) and provides legal literature on human rights and clinical education to law faculties with clinics. COLPI believes that these activities will provide a solid foundation on which these clinics will be able to run without further OSI support in a few years. |
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Street Law & Informal Education |
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In the context of the Open Society Institute’s Street Law program, COLPI is specifically responsible for its legal dimension. Street Law is a program that provides basic legal education to “normal citizens,” which is presented with the help of law students and lawyers, in general. It can take a variety forms depending on the educators (law students, lawyers, police, etc.) and target groups (secondary and high school pupils, prisoners, minority groups, etc.). Currently, COLPI focuses on developing street law programs in law faculties where law students provide basic legal knowledge to secondary school students, prisoners, refugee camps interns, and clients of other similar institutions. The law students receive instruction in teaching methodologies and design courses as an optional one-semester or one-year course during their third or fourth year of law school. To date, law faculties have established 10 street law projects as a result of COLPI’s efforts. COLPI has arranged study visits for the new street law faculty teams to help them successfully steer their projects, and has organized a special workshop for law students participating in OSI’s Street Law Program in Poland. COLPI plans to organize a regional street law colloquium and a number of capacity-building workshops for individual faculty members. Additionally, COLPI intends to develop new set of legal education programs (within the current program budget line) that will focus on youth, juvenile justice institutions, and anti-corruption issues. |
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Human Rights School in the Caucasus |
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The human rights school for participants from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, organized in close cooperation with the Dutch Helsinki Committee, proved to be a great success. In 1999, two sessions were conducted: the first focused on human rights litigation, and the second on monitoring human rights violations. Following these sessions, the participants expressed tremendous interest in receiving more intensive training, so COLPI organized an additional third session. Each of the sessions was designed to provide institutional capacity-building and professional development, and to facilitate contacts for human rights activists in each of the three Caucus countries. Two more sessions on the same topics are planned for 2000. |
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Human Rights School in Central Asia |
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COLPI started its Central Asian human rights training program in 1999 to teach practicing lawyers how to use domestic and international remedies in their work. |
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OSCE Summer Academy |
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COLPI co-organizes an annual Summer School on the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and a summer school on minority rights. The OSCE’s Summer School in Austria has been transformed into a Summer Academy with continued COLPI support. The Summer School has developed into a unique forum where young diplomats of OSCE member states and NGO representatives receive in-depth training on the how the OSCE functions and how the organization can be used to promote human rights and security. |
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Links on Legal Education: |
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The Civic Education Project (CEP), a not-for-profit international education organization, is dedicated to assisting universities in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Its website is: http://www.cep.org.hu/ |