Learn about the mandate of the International Criminal Court (ICC), how it fights against impunity and how perpetrators of crimes against humanity are held accountable.
In this online course offered by University of Padua you will explore the core concepts of human rights and international criminal law, their similarities, intersections, and their differences.
In the first week of the course, you will learn to distinguish between essential legal terms such as human rights violations, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The first week will also provide you with a well-researched primer to the origins and historic development of international criminal, human rights, and humanitarian law. Beyond the essential terminology and the history, you will start exploring the statute of the International Criminal Court.
The second week focuses on sexual and gender-based crimes and illustrates the international legal framework through case studies. You will learn about the procedural and evidentiary rules regarding sexual crimes and examine barriers to achieve justice. You will also learn to identify structural gender inequalities and discrimination and be able to outline how the affect individuals. At the center of this module is the question how the international community can ensure accountability and end sexual crimes.
In week three of the course, you will focus on the protection of children under international humanitarian and criminal law during armed conflict. You will explore the role of the international criminal court in protecting children and discuss the current case law. This module will specifically focus on child soldiers, re-integrating former child soldiers, protection of child victims, and the rights of children involved in armed conflict.
In the last week of the course, you will learn how human rights courts tackle human rights violations and about the cross-fertilization effects between human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. You will examine what human rights protection means in practice and learn to expose shortcomings in the current protection systems.
The course is specifically tailored towards master’s students, professionals, human rights defenders, and NGO workers but will be useful to everyone with an interest in international law and human rights. The course is taught by lecturers from the human rights masters at University of Padova and its Human Rights Center.
You can sign up for the course and start learning instantly. The course takes roughly 24 hours to complete. While taking part in the course is free, you can opt-in for a verified certificate and access to the graded activities for an extra fee. So far more than 18,000 learners have taken part in the course.
