EFHR marks the International Human Rights Day with a training

To mark the International Human Rights Day, on December 19 and 20 the European Foundation of Human Rights (EFHR) held an open lecture and training in the field of human rights and international law. The training was given by a distinguished lawyer and expert in international law, professor Fernand de Varenness.

During the lecture, which took place on December 19 at Kazimieras Simonavičius University, participants had an opportunity to extend their knowledge of the international system of human rights. Among covered topics were, e.g., social and legal situation of national minorities across the globe, activity of international organisations campaigning for world peace, and violation of human rights during current political, ethnic and religious conflicts. A lot of attention was paid to the scope and limitations of interventions made by international organisations in inside ethnic conflicts.

Next day, on December 20, professor Fernand de Varenness gave a training which allowed all participants to extend their knowledge of human rights protection (including national minorities’ rights) and to learn more about the activity of the European Foundation of Human Rights. Besides professor Fernand de Varenness, the training was also given by Dr Łukasz Wardyn and Dr Elżbieta Kuzborska.

Among the participants were students, lawyers, professors of several universities, attorneys from Vilnius and Kaunas, employees of the Seimas, and representatives of NGOs. After the training, everyone took an active part in a discussion.

The EFHR was very pleased with the attendance. We were particularly happy to welcome students, who came in spite of the festive season, and representatives of the Latvian Human Rights Committee, who travelled all the way from Riga.

All the participants received educational materials about human rights, such as brochures informing of the activity of the EFHR and the Council of Europe, entitled: “Laws and Freedoms in practice”, and “47 countries and one organisation… The Council of Europe”. Both are available in many languages, including English and Lithuanian, and were commissioned from the Foundation by the Council of Europe.

We would like to thank “Kurier Wileński”, Web portals “Wilnoteka” and www.l24.lt, radios “Znad Wilii” and “PlayRadio”, and “Infolex” for accepting the media patronage of our training. We also wish to thank the Kazimieras Simonavičius University, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius University, and the University of Applied Social Sciences for promoting the lecture among their students, as well as hotel “Runmis” for their professional service.

See you at the next trainings!

EFHR

Translated by Natalia Kosecka within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, ww.efhr.eu.