Human Rights Clinic - Strengthening Human Rights Protection
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | CIVIL RIGHTS DEFENDERS |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 300 000 |
| Project duration | April 2017 - December 2017 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | Social innovation - development and testing |
| Call | Social innovation - phase 1 |
Purpose and goal
The purpose of the project was to improve the protection of human rights in Sweden through the establishment of human rights clinics. A human rights clinic is a law school activity in which law students assist jurists in carrying out human rights legal work. The goal for this project was to develop a model for cooperation between human rights organizations and universities which strengthens access to human rights for disadvantaged groups in society. We have developed such a model, which we plan to continue to test and improve in the coming years.
Expected results and effects
Short term results included students provided legal services in a case involving ethnic discrimination, drafting a complaint and completed a pre-study for strategic litigation. Members of society received free legal assistance. Long term results are the establishment of clinics at other universities and more organizations receiving legal support, more students gaining knowledge about human rights standards and becoming human rights lawyers, increased access to justice and improvement to the Swedish legal system through important strategic litigation.
Planned approach and implementation
Jurists from UU and CRD determined which human rights challenges to focus on. Academic workshops hosted by UU provided a crash course in theory, method, and practice of strategic human rights litigation. Students were assigned legal questions of importance to ongoing or future litigation. They received additional training from subject matter experts. They did genuine legal work under the guidance of jurists at UU, and presented their results for CRD. Several universities and organizations were invited to a roundtable where UU and CRD presented the clinic and their experience from it.