Courses of the People's Academy
People's Academy of International Law Courses and Seminars
The Charter, its genesis, essential principles and relevance today
- Course 1A Recording: Course 1A of the People’s Academy: The UN Charter, its genesis, essential principles and relevance today
- History of the Charter, the role and respective positions of the allied powers, and the antifascist resistance, controversial issues of its drafting including the absence of a right of peoples to self-determination
- Aims and principles – Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms; UN definition of “rule of law”
- Sovereign equality and non-intervention in domestic affairs
- Prohibition of the Use of Force and exceptions, the possibility of restriction by Right to Peace
- Multilateralism
- Modes of conflict settlement between States
Course 1B: The UN charter: Global conflict resolution, Legal challenges to war, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Critiques.
Course 2A: The United Nations, the World Court, and Compliance with International Law
- Course 2A Recording: The United Nations, the World Court, and Compliance with International Law
- Organs
- General Assembly (GA) and committees
- Security Council (SC)
- Secretary General
- International Court of Justice (World Court, or ICJ)
- Economic and Social Council
- Trusteeship Council
- Legal Status of SC and GA resolutions, nature of the veto (including the position
of the ICJ regarding abstention)
Course 2B: UN Organs, Their Respective Roles and Competencies & Supporting People’s Struggles
- Course 2B Recording: UN Organs, Their Respective Roles and Competencies: Supporting Peoples’ Struggles
Course 3A: Key UN Agencies: UNHRC, UNRWA and UNESCO
- Course 3A Recording and Materials: Key UN Agencies: UNHRC, UNRWA and UNESCO
Course 3B: Monitoring and Implementation of Treaties to Defend People’s Rights
- Course 3B Recording and Materials: Monitoring and Implementation of Treaties to Defend People’s Rights
Course 4A: The Criminalization of Rights and Human Rights Defenders as a Means of Repression
- Case studies: Palestine, Philippines, Turkey, US/Ecuador
- Course 4A Recording and Materials: The Criminalization of Rights and Human Rights Defenders as a Means of Repression
Course 4B: The Criminalization of Rights and Human Rights Defenders as a Means of Repression
- Case studies: Ecuador, South Korea, Brazil, United States and Indigenous peoples
- Course 4B Recording and Materials: The Criminalization of Rights and Human Rights Defenders as a Means of Repression
Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights
- Sources of International Law (Article 38 ICJ Statute)
- UN instruments
- Regional instruments
- Collective rights as source of individual rights
- Right to development – why has it never become a legal right?
- Right to water and food, right to be protected from famine
- Right to a clean and healthy environment
- Labour rights and the role of the ILO since 1919, as a result of the Russian Revolution
- Protection of human rights by national and international jurisdictions (court decisions on right to peace – Japan, South Korea, Costa Rica)
Regional Systems (Inter-American, European, African)
International Law of Armed Conflict (“International Humanitarian Law”) and Refugee Law
- The Geneva Conventions, its Protocols and other instruments, Ad Hoc Tribunals, International Criminal Court
- Law of Refugees
- Relationship between International Law of Armed Conflict (ILAC), International Human Rights Law (IHRL) and Domestic Law: The Example of Terrorism
- Liberation and resistance movements and ILAC
International Crimes, Repression, and the fight against Impunity
- Constituent elements of international crimes
- The Nuremberg Charter and its critics
- International Jurisdiction, Special Criminal Tribunals, International Criminal Court (how advocates can use complaint procedure)
- Universal Jurisdiction
Liberation and emancipation struggles and international law
- The Right to Rebellion, Resistance, etc in the context of the Right of Peoples to Self-Determination