Antonio Cassese 2014 Summer School, Geneva
Transitional Justice, Conflict and Human Rights
7 - 11 July 2014
Deadline for application: 19 May 2014
 

This Summer School is organised by the Antonio Cassese Initiative for Justice, Peace and Humanity. Based at the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, this initiative was established on 23 April 2012 to continue the legacy of Antonio Cassese, one of the leading and most influential international lawyers of our time. The mandate of the Cassese Initiative is to promote global education, learning and training in areas to which Antonio Cassese dedicated his professional life, including human rights and transitional justice.

Transitional Justice, Conflict and Human Rights
The challenge of dealing with the aftermath of violent conflict continues to trouble countries throughout the world. In responding to that challenge, the ever-expanding field of transitional justice proposes a range of practical measures – including criminal prosecutions, truth commissions, reparations programmes and institutional reform – to potentially assist societies emerging from armed conflict.

The 2014 Antonio Cassese Summer School offers comprehensive, in-depth knowledge of the theoretical and practical application of these measures and practices. Based on both scholarly and practitioner expertise across a range of areas (including human rights, international criminal law, security reform, legal philosophy, gender politics) and country situations, the programme combines a general course on transitional justice with complementary topic-specific lectures.

Main lecturer
Naomi Roht-Arriaza is Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Professor Roht-Arriaza is the author of The Pinochet Effect: Transnational Justice in the Age of Human Rights (2005) and Impunity and Human Rights in International Law and Practice (1995), and coeditor of Transitional Justice in the Twenty-First Century: Beyond Truth versus Justice (2006). In 2011 Professor Roht-Arriaza was a Democracy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development, and in 2012 she was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in Botswana. She is the president of the Board of the Due Process of Law Foundation and a legal advisor to the Center for Justice and Accountability. She earned a BA from UC Berkeley, a MA from the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, and a JD from the UC Berkeley School of Law.

Programme
The Summer School is structured around a one-week general course on transitional justice delivered in the morning and complementary thematic lectures given in the afternoon. 

Teaching method
The Summer School aims at a dynamic combination of theoretical, in-depth lectures with practical, ‘real-world’ skill trainings. The course is intended to be interactive, with teachers and participants establishing a constructive working dialogue.

Location
The Summer School will take place at the historical Villa Moynier, home to the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights (joint Centre of the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies and the University of Geneva). The Villa is located in the Mon Repos Park on the shores of Lake Geneva, in the heart of International Geneva (see map).

Who should apply?
Advanced law and foreign affairs students as well as practitioners working in areas related to transitional justice are invited to apply to the Summer School programme.

Application procedure
The admission to the programme is selective and places limited.
Applications must include:
• a personal statement (explaining the applicant’s interest in the course; maximum one page)
• the applicant’s CV

Please send your application to summerschool@cassese-initiative.org. The application deadline is 29 May 2014.

Tuition fees
The tuition fees amount to 1500 Swiss Francs. Tuition fees include: reading materials online, access to the libraries of the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, welcoming dinner, 5 lunches, coffee breaks, closing cocktail, free entry to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.

Unfortunately, the Summer School is unable to offer scholarships or financial support. All participants are responsible for their own travel costs to Geneva, including Swiss visa fees, as well as dinners (approximately 30 Swiss Francs per meal) in Geneva. Lunch will be provided throughout the course.

Certificate
Participants who successfully complete the Summer School programme are awarded a ‘Certificate of Participation‘ from the Antonio Cassese Initiative for Justice, Peace and Humanity and the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.

Credits
The programme is accredited according to the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). The programme is worth approximately 3 ECTS, the precise amount of credits depending on the evaluation of the participants’ home university. Participants wishing to obtain credits for the programme are required to attend an examination and to write a research paper in areas covered by the programme.