One of the project currently going on at the Institute for Human Rights is roll play trial, that is open to all the people enrolled in the School of Social and Legal Sciences (which I know sounds kind of kinky…).
The students who decide to participate in the competition are paired up, given a real case from interamerican human rights system, and then each group is assigned a roll, either the state that is being brought before the Interamerican Court (based in San Jose de Cosa Rica) or lawyer for the victim of the alleged human rights violation. The teams then study the case, and are paired up in a mock trial before a group of professors acting as judges in the Interamerican court. The winners of the competition, are then sent onward to a national competition (almost held by the Institute here in La Plata in July) and are paired up with a new case against other groups from other universities. The team that wins the national competition is given a full ride for the masters program in human rights.
It is a really intensive, long, competitive process, with people from a variety of fields of study competing in it (including lawyers to be), and you learn a lot about how to defend and argue cases in the real world. Needless to say, I am not taking part in the competition! Ha ha ha…not that intense yet!
But as a required preparation for those taking part in the competition, there is an intensive mini-course on Interamerican Law and the Inter-american Court System, which I am participating in. It is eight classes long, and is being taught by the various professors in the masters program. It is amazing. I am learning a ton about the origins of Human Rights (1948, International Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man) and about international and inter-american Human Rights law (the Organization of American States and the Intera-merican Human Rights Court).
Almost as important as taking this really intense introduction to a necessary and relevant topic, is that I am doing it in Spanish. I have pages and pages of notes taken in class, in Spanish, and honestly, most of the time when I am listening to the lecture I don’t even realize it is in a foreign language. It is an amazing feeling, and a fascinating competition.
[...] As previously mentioned, one of the activities currently taking place in the Instituto de Derechos Humanos is a mock trial in the model of the Inter-American Human Rights Court, open to any student currently studying law here at the National University of La Plata. [...]
[...] the daily environment, the educational oppurtunities that the institute offers are incredible. The mini-course on the inter-american human rights court system that I took was fantastic, and all the various talks and panel discussions that I have been able to [...]