Focus on human rights

Ett barn som håller ut sin hand

Human rights and their application in practice are at the heart of a Faculty of Law project aimed at offering better legal support to vulnerable groups. In the Human Rights Clinic, law students get to tackle real cases under the supervision of their teachers. By strengthening the protection of the rights of vulnerable groups, the clinic seeks to make a long-term contribution to a democratically, socially and economically sustainable society.

The Human Rights Clinic is an organisation and educational methodology based on collaboration between human rights organisations and researchers, teachers and students at the University’s Faculty of Law.

The overarching purpose of the clinic is to strengthen the protection of the human rights of particularly vulnerable groups in society. The collaboration between the clinic and human rights organisations helps to give groups in society that are subject to human rights violations increased access to legal support.

The Human Rights Clinic aims to contribute to a systematic reinforcement of the legal capacity of civil society organisations. At the same time, budding lawyers gain a deeper knowledge of human rights with the support of expert supervision from experienced researchers and teachers. By strengthening the protection of the rights of vulnerable groups, the clinic can make a long-term contribution to a democratically, socially and economically sustainable society.

The Human Rights Clinic is the first in Sweden and is still run as a project in which law students, under supervision and in cooperation with the human rights organisation Civil Rights Defenders and others, take on real cases as part of their education. The goal now is to put the concept on a permanent footing and to advance it by developing models, methods and structures for evaluating, generalising and spreading the model to other universities and organisations.

“We have a great responsibility to convey the message that law is a powerful tool for putting human rights into practice and that the rule of law has seldom been more important in this connection than it is now. The activities at the Human Rights Clinic make a significant contribution.
Anna Jonsson Cornell, Professor of Comparative Constitutional Law

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