IAB 2015- The Human Rights Fellows Program was established by the Minerva Center for Human Rights in 1999. The Program seeks to foster awareness of human rights among university students; to educate new generations of human rights activists and leaders by introducing them to human rights theories and exposing them to recent academic research in this area; and to allow students to experience the inner workings of human rights organizations on the ground.

The Program is designed to facilitate meaningful interaction between Arab and Jewish students, and provides a structured opportunity to engage (and de-demonize) the "other" – an opportunity that is unique in the university environment. Indeed, the vast majority of the students in the Program report that this was the first time they got to know and had substantive conversations – let alone developed personal friendships - with colleagues from the other community.

Each year 15 Hebrew University undergraduate and graduate students from a range of disciplines are chosen according to their proven interest in, and commitment to, the field of human rights, as well as their academic excellence. The Program consists of a comprehensive, year-long interdisciplinary course on human rights in Israeli society, taught at the Hebrew University by the Program's Founding Director, Dr. Daphna Golan - combined with an internship of 8-10 hours per week at human rights NGOs under the Center's supervision.

Each student chooses an organization from a lengthy list of NGOs that have asked to take part in the Program and have been approved by the Minerva Center for Human Rights. In recent years these have included: ACRI - The Association for Civil Rights in Israel; Bizchut - The Center for the Human Rights of People with Disabilities; Adalah - The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; Jerusalem Rape Crisis Center; Kav La'Oved - The Worker's Hotline; Jerusalem Open House for Pride and Tolerance; PCATI - The Public Committee against Torture in Israel; Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights; ASSAF - Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel; Physicians for Human Rights; The Israel Religious Action Center; B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Territories; The Jerusalem African Community Center; and others.

Students chosen for the Program receive a scholarship and academic credit. Current and former Fellows are strongly encouraged to take part in other academic activities of the Minerva Center as well.

The Human Rights Fellows Program consistently receives rave reviews from the Fellows and from the organizations at which they volunteer – and has had a powerful cumulative impact on the development of human rights professionals and civil society in Israel. A recent survey of Program graduates found that an overwhelming proportion of past Fellows now work professionally in human rights fields and report that their experience in the Program had a deeply profound and formative impact on them, and on their choice of career.

 

International criminal prosecution is a crucial part of transitional justice processes, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) is the most important standing institution.

The ICC Trial Competition takes place annually in the Hague and is inspired by the model of the ICC Itself. National teams of students present the case for the prosecution, the defense and the victims in front of internationally renowned experts in international criminal law, including judges of the ICC and ICTY and scholars. Special emphasis is given to ICC procedural rules and on substantive international criminal law. This is a unique course designed to allow second-year students and onwards, including Master students (which are not practicing advocates), to experience in the field of International Criminal Law advocacy, in its various aspects.

Beginning in 2012 the Minerva Center has funded and provided academic and logistic support for a team of Hebrew University law students that participate in the ICC competition. The Minerva teams consisted of 4 undergraduate students, and were supervised by Dr. Maria Varaki (in 2012) and by Dr. Rotem Giladi (since 2013). Participation in the ICC Trail Competition course involves intensive work, dictated by the competition timetable. The date of the competition itself is usually around the month of April, and two months prior to that teams are required to submit pleading in writing. 

The 2012 HUJI team of students was the first Israeli team ever to participate in the competition – and to date, no other Israeli university has sent students to this competition. The 2013 team already achieved superb results – making it all the way to the semifinals of the competition and ultimately finishing in 5th-6th place (out of more than 50 participating teams from leading universities around the world). And the 2014 team finished in 2nd place (!) – an astonishing achievement, particularly as this was only our third year of participation.

Every year, The Minerva Center organizes for its team a rehearsal just before their departure for The Hague, open to the public, with senior jurists serving as judges.

Our team's participation in the competition has received support from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which funded the group's flights to The Hague. Accommodations and meals during the week-long competition in The Hague and other course expenses were funded by the Minerva Center.

This is the sixth year in which the Minerva Center for Human Rights is sending a team of students to the competition, within the framework of the Transitional Justice program. 

The Hebrew University's 2016-17 ICC competition team consists of 3 students, supervised by Adv. Ido Rosenzweig.

Further details on the competition can be found on this website

 

UN Women- Constitutional Research- Global Gender Equality in conflict
/ Post - Conflict

A supervised research course associated with the Access to Justice and Constitutions Unit of the Leadership and Governance Section, UN Women.

Un Women was created in 2010 as the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. UN Women designed and launched the first Global Gender Equality Constitutional Database (GECD) in December 2013. The database is a repository of gender equality related provisions extracted from 195 constitutions from around the world. GECD now presents 24 categories and 19 subcategories, including: affirmative action; national/local level quotas; participation in public life; sexual and reproductive health; and sexual orientation and gender identity. The project now aims to create a collection of in-depth Research Papers mapping the impact of gender equality provisions in constitutions in emerging democracies and post-conflict.

The course students, supervised by Profs. Tomer Broude and Yuval Shany, will prepare comparative Research Papers on Israeli law and on non-Israeli jurisdictions. The students- - Dorothea von Gablenz, Shira Gushpantz and Tamar Drori, will travel to Washington, DC, to participate in a UN Women Conference to present their papers.

 

University of Fribourg – Hebrew University of Jerusalem Joint Seminar in International Law

Prof. Samantha Besson, University of Fribourg & Prof. Yuval Shany, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The UniFr-HUJ joint seminar includes six students from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) and six students from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel) who met to discuss various international law issues arising from the film The Law in these Parts (Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, 2012) during two three-days sessions in Jerusalem and in Fribourg in the autumn 2016.

The issues discussed in the film and during the seminar pertain to the (domestic and international) law applicable to and in the occupied territories. They include issues in legal philosophy (related mostly to the rule of law, legal pluralism, legal resistance, state of emergency, judicial law-making and the relation between the judiciary and politics), general international law (related to jurisdiction and statehood), international human rights law (related mostly to due process guarantees, but also to other human rights issues such as jurisdiction and derogations) and international humanitarian law (related mostly to the law of occupation and to the distinction between civilians and combatants).

As a part of the course, the students met with professionals from the ICRC, UNRWA and military courts in Geneva and Jerusalem.