Law
Event
Human
rights summer school: A pioneer initiative
Dr.
Uttam Kumar Das
Human
rights is also an issue of culture among human communities.
The concepts and ideas of human rights are expanding from
person to person in different ways. Among them the effective
one is through education and teaching. However, human
rights education is a very new phenomenon in country like
ours. Though it should be a part of the mass education
but till now it does not happen. Only few law departments
and other of social sciences in public and private universities
offer this either as a full or part of a course. There
are so many limitations: lack of the up-to-date syllabus
and study materials, well educated (in the field of human
rights) and trained up teaching staff, motivations so
on and so forth.
Most
of the donors and development partners working in the
country are seemingly more interested to channel their
funds through NGOs for programmes relating so called human
rights awareness. However, most of these organizations,
with few exceptions off course, are not in a position
in terms of their human resources and capacities to run
such type of activities. Sometime, the 'key persons' or
'leaders' of these organizations even do not practice
the very basic spirit of human rights in their daily activities
within and out side the organization, as we observe.
Considering
this vacuum in the education of human rights, again a
non-government organization (however, not like regular
one) Empowerment through Law of the Common People (ELCOP)
has come up with a mission of human rights education for
selected group of people who will lead the country in
near future.
The
ELCOP has just recently completed the fifth round of its
mission of 'Human Rights Summer School.' The latest programme
held from 18 to 29 December 2004 as usual at the premises
of the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development (BARD)
in Comilla.
According
to Dr. Mizanur Rahman the two-week long school is a residential
programme that facilitates the participants to be introduced
with the alternative and parallel methods of learning
human rights, developing their better understanding, research
capacity and skills of advocacy for promotion and protection
of human rights which would lead to empowerment of common
people. The participants are the selected law students
from mainly public universities of the country as well
as some from other South Asian countries.
The
main objectives are:
*Sensitize the participating students on crucial social
issues, like poverty alleviation, empowerment of women,
rights of minority and environmental issues;
*Teach them how to identify human rights issues;
*Provide with a modern and effective methodology for the
implementation of basic human rights;
*Plant in the students a deep sense of social responsibility;
and
*Train a group of pro-human rights and anti-generic lawyers
who will play a more efficacious role in protecting and
upholding human rights.
The
theme of summer school 2004 was "Human Rights and
Good Governance." The total number of participants
was 47. Among them two were from India and four from Nepal.
The
working days, from 18 to 28 December were devoted on different
issues. These include Genesis of Human Rights, Good Governance,
Group Rights and Governance, Legal Education and Justice,
Displaced Persons' Rights, Migrants Rights, Access to
Justice, Lawyering for Justice and community visit.
Like
previous one, this year's resource persons also included
eminent and active persons in the field of legal education,
judiciary, research, human rights activism etc. They included
Justice K M Subhan, Barrister M. Amir-ul Islam, Mr. Shafique
Ahmed, Professor Rafiqul Islam of Macquarie University,
Australia, Dr. Mizanur Rahman, Dr. Rahamat Ullah, Gobinda
Chandra Mondol, Professor Dr. M. Shah Alam, Zakir Hossain,
Ms. Christine Richadrson, Professor M. Habibur Rahman,
Dr. Sarker Ali Akkas , Mr. Nakib Md. Nasrullah, Mr. Salim
Toha; Professor David McQuoid Mason of University of Kwazulu-Natal,
South Africa; Professor Yubaraj Sangroula of the Katmandu
Law School, Nepal; Professor Shubhram Rajkhowa of Gouhati
University, India; Dr. Hossain Zillur Rahaman; Advocate
Sultana Kamal, Dr. Faustina Pereira and Mr. Philip Gain;
Mr. Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury; Ms. Rina Sen Gupta and Mr.
Mizanur Rahman of the International Organization for Migration
(IOM); Supreme Court lawyer Dr. Naim Ahmed; senior government
official Dr. Mahfuzul Haq for their valuable contribution.
In
the fifth school, for the first time a day was devoted
on Displaced Persons' Rights. The day sponsored by the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Issues covered on that day included conceptual background
of asylum seekers, refugees and internally displaced people
(IDP), mandate and activities of UNHCR and the international
protection of refugees, accession to the 1951 Convention
relating to the Status of the Refugees and its 1967 Protocol
and adoption of a national legislation on asylum seekers
and refugees, UNHCR's operations in Bangladesh.
The
former Chief Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman formally
opened the school on 18 December 2004. Dr. Kamal Hossain
was the Chief Guest at the valedictory session while Mr.
Christopher Beng Cha Lee, Representative of UNHCR in Bangladesh
and Mr. Kim McQuay, Representative of the Asia Foundation
were special guests.
This
year ELCOP introduced the lifetime achievement award for
human rights. The first award goes to Justice K M Subhan
for his life long activity and contribution for promotion
and protection of human rights in the country.
One
important thing needs to be mentioned that a good number
of private universities have initiated law departments.
So, participants should also be picked up from there.
Off course, the quality and level of the participants
should be a determining factor for selection. Also different
institutions should come forward with innovative idea
and plans for initiating human rights education and research.
The
author, a human rights researcher and practitioner, now
works with UNHCR in Dhaka.
