Human Rights capacity development for legal professionals, including support to national training institutions

Human Rights capacity development for legal professionals, including support to national training institutions Human rights capacity building for legal professionals (judges, prosecutors and lawyers) is crucial to ensure that those in charge of implementing European human rights standards have the necessary knowledge and skills to do so. Since the European Convention on Human Rights, through its additional Protocols and the evolving case law of the European Court of Human Rights, is a living instrument, it is important to support the member states and more specifically the national training institutions and bar associations in charge of the training of legal professionals.

For this purpose, the Council of Europe has developed a dedicated programme, HELP (European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals), which overall objective is to support member states to ensure the effective implementation of the Convention at the national level by providing tools and methodology to national training institutions for judges, prosecutors and lawyers. All training is interactive and based on adult learning techniques and open education. The trainees are provided with publications and case extracts or full texts of judgments, in the relevant language. They are also given access to on-line materials such as HUDOC and the HELP training tools. These materials are available to any individual who wishes to improve his or her knowledge of the Convention. For more information, please consult the dedicated HELP website.

All capacity building activities included in the projects under the Division’s responsibility are implemented under the HELP umbrella, using its methodology and tools.