On July 10, 2023 the Centre for European Studies jointly with the UNHCR Armenia and the Council of Europe Office in Yerevan, launched an online course titled “Asylum and Human Rights” as part of CoE’s Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals – HELP programme adapted to the Armenian context.
The event was attended by 24 colleagues from Migration and Citizenship Service of Armenia, the General Prosecutor’s Office, the National Security Service, the Border Guards Troops, Administrative Court of Appeal and the Administrative Court, the Chamber of Advocates, Human Rights Defender’s Office, the Public Defender’s Office, UNHCR and NGOs of the concerned sector who have now been enrolled in the second phase of the HELP online course. The Welcome speeches were made by Mrs.Lilit Mirzoyan, Deputy Director of the Centre for European Studies, Mr. Artem Hakobyan, coordinator of the CoE HELP projects in Armenia. The UNHCR representative National Protection Officer in Armenia, Ms. Susanna Grigoryan introduced the HELP platform highlighting its importance for the partners working in the field of asylum and protection of refugee rights, while course tutor, Mr Sergey Ghazinyan navigated the participants through the “Asylum and Human Rights” training course by presenting the respective website.
HELP courses which are conducted in an interactive and participatory manner are aimed to provide high-quality education on human rights to judges, lawyers and prosecutors throughout Europe for the latter to better protect human rights at the national level. It is the only pan-European Network of national training institutions for judges, prosecutors and lawyers in the 46 CoE member states providing an e-learning platform with free online courses and offering a human rights training methodology for legal experts.