Women’s Human Rights Training Institute (WHRTI) was established in 2004. It is managed by Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation (BGRF) and three other partners that founded the institute. WHRTI was established with the aim to build and enhance the skills of young lawyers from Central and Eastern European and the Newly Independent States (CEE/NIS) so that they can use their skills for litigation on issues related to women’s rights. Since its founding in 2004, WHRTI has completed two rounds: WHRTI 2004-2006 and WHRTI 2007-2009, during which over 30 lawyers have been trained by the institute.
WHRTI expects its trained lawyers to focus on litigation on women’s rights issues, including:
– Violence against women,
– Sexual and reproductive health and rights, and
– Employment discrimination.
The WHRTI provides participants in-depth knowledge in women’s human rights protection in the three areas noted above.
The WHRTI provides practical skills for development of strategic litigation in the region both at the national and international levels through using regional and universal human rights mechanisms such as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Optional Protocol to CEDAW as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Optional Protocol to ICCPR.
The WHRTI also gives lawyers an opportunity to get acquainted with the EU standards in the field of equal treatment of women and men, including the case law of the European Court of Justice.
Objectives of the Institute
- Develop successful regional and country level litigation strategies on women’s human rights in CEE/NIS.
- Build the capacity of lawyers in CEE/NIS to litigate women’s human rights cases at the national, regional and UN levels.
- Provide continuous support and expertise for women’s rights litigation efforts of lawyers in CEE/NIS and seed new women’s rights litigation.
- Strengthen the network of lawyers for women’s human rights’ strategic litigation in the region.
The initiative takes a three-prong approach in developing jurisprudence at the three above-mentioned fields of women’s rights.
The WHRTI takes place in Bulgaria, comprises four sessions, and is convened every six months for a one-week session and includes the same group of participants throughout the two-year project period. The working language of the Institute is English.
The last two sessions are designed as moot-court sessions consisting of team work on hypothetical cases brought before the European Court of Human Rights, the CEDAW Committee and the UN Human Rights Committee.
Over 30 young lawyers have participated in the Institute from countries such as Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia, Hungary, Ireland (observer), Latvia, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Turkey and Ukraine.
For more information and details, you can visit this link.
