This course will serve as an exciting and interactive introduction to human rights at work in an international courtroom. Learners in this course will spend the first two weeks of the course understanding the international human rights framework and learning about the European Court for Human Rights and how it seeks to hold countries accountable for human rights violations within their borders. The rest of this course will be dedicated to participating in two mock trials of cases before the European Court of Human Rights. Learners will be assigned as either part of a team of lawyers in the case or as judges in the case and will have the chance to dig deeper into the human rights framework, learning not only the substance of human rights law, but as well gaining an understanding of argumentation, legal reasoning and the importance of court procedures. 

Weeks 1 and 2: a discussion based introduction to international human rights and the legal framework set up to hold countries accountable for the protection of human rights for people around the world. 

Weeks 3 and 4: the first mock trial will be held these two weeks as learners take on the role of legal advocate or judge as they bring a case before the European Court of Human Rights in a mock trial exercise. (The case details are fictitious and the case file will be provided by the instructor). The case will conclude and there will be time to debrief the exercise at the end of week 4. 

Weeks 5 and 6: the second mock trial will proceed during these two weeks with a similar schedule. This time roles and teams will be re ordered to give learners a new learning experience. 

Learners need not come to this course with any previous knowledge. I do teach a 10 week Human Rights course which learners can take prior to engaging in this course to help solidify what they have learned, but it is not required to take the human rights course prior to taking this mock trial course.