Duration
30 Jun 2024 - 07 Jul 2024
This Master Class is a joint venture between the Geoffrey Nice Foundation (GNF) and the Serbian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights.
Application deadline is 31 March 2024.
CRITERIA:
This Master Class is devised for MA, PhD and Post-PhD students in the fields of Law, History, Sociology, Politics, International Relations, Journalism, European Studies or related subjects.
Please send your application, consisting of a CV and a short motivation letter, to:
geoffreynicefoundation@gmail.com and kucher.na.vi@gmail.com (Please always use both addresses for all correspondence)
GENERAL OBJECTIVE: The interdisciplinary approach of the Master Class contributes to developing the skills needed for legal and non-legal professionals, who are interested in working in the fields of human rights, international humanitarian law and global justice.
FORMAT: The Master Class is a combination of lectures provided by academics, practitioners of law and NGO activists, together with exercises and group reviewing of a few relevant films.
METHOD/SPIRIT OF MASTER CLASS:
This is to be an intensive – immersive – course working largely what might be thought northern European working hours (not Mediterranean/Adriatic hours with late starts and siestas): 0900 to 1300; 1430 to 1900 (with breaks). Punctuality required at start, and will be respected at the end, of all sessions. Lunch is provided in short 90-minute midday breaks. It is expected that groups of students from different countries - into which the Master Class will be divided - may continue discussions and preparation of exercises over lunch.
There is no pre-reading list (pre-reading where required for courses like this is rarely if ever done). Instead, it will be assumed that all those attending have a basic outline knowledge (Wikipedia if no more) of WWII; Pakistan-Bangladesh 1971 genocide; Rwanda 1994 genocide; Western Balkans 1993-1999 wars; Rohingya 2016-2017 genocide; Ukraine-Russia 2022>war; Israel-Gaza 2023>conflict.
Each of the six days will concentrate on a different event and will have a different lead moderator for the day introducing the topic (30 minutes to add to the basic knowledge all will have) and then introducing (and moderating) other speakers, exercises, films etc.
THE FOCUS OF THIS YEAR’S MASTER CLASS:
The end of the Cold War may have left the world more secure and yet more unstable. Old states disintegrated and new states have been emerging leading to a time of increasing risk of real wars for us and our families, now and to come.
Wars are failures and disasters for all sides involved from the moment they start. Few people want wars. There have already been many wars around the globe since World War II.
It may be reasonable and accurate to say that most humans would prefer to live in peace and to see fellow humans around the world living in peace.
In several wars and internal conflicts - and in all the ‘case studies’ of the Master Class – it has been said that genocide has been committed. ‘Genocide’ is a term used widely these days, and in different ways by courts and by the general public. It needs to be properly understood if to be used constructively and will be discussed throughout the week of the Master Class.
Accountability for crimes committed in wars (war crimes trials, for example) and internal conflicts (and persecutions by states of their own people) has happened in some cases and is looked for in others. How different forms of accountability can work, and the consequence of different accountability processes, need to be understood and will be discussed.
In wars and civil wars all citizens on all sides tend to fall in line with their political leadership. Where any party to a war is clearly in the wrong should all citizens of that party be held to account as the only way to achieve general deterrence of the next would-be criminal warmonger of persecutor of their own people? The Master Class will consider this question and what, if anything, citizens as well as politicians might have done to prevent the conflicts happening.
More info can be found here.