Over 100 legal professionals from several EU countries met in Strasbourg and online on 24 October for a cross border launch of the HELP course on Labour Rights as Human Rights. The event was organised under the EU-CoE HELP EU III project which is funded under the EU Justice Programme (2021-2027).

The launch took place at the premises of the Council of Europe and was attended by three groups of participants: from Lithuania, Poland and a mixed group of professionals from different EU countries.

The launch started with an opening speech from by Eva Pastrana, Head of the Justice and Human Rights Training Division of the Council of Europe.

The participants were introduced to the EU-CoE “HELP in the EU III” project, as well as to the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Programme and its online platform, where over 45 courses on human rights are available in the self-learning format, including the course on Labour Rights as Human Rights.

The seminar provided the participants with the occasion to exchange with relevant experts : Emmanuel Simonet, lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, guided attendees in the virtual exploration of the HUDOC database which provides access to the case-law of the Court and introduced them to useful ECtHR’s resources.  Amaya Ubeda, member of the Secretariat of the European Social Charter, gave a comprehensive overview of the protection of Labour Rights set by the European Social Charter. Polina Roussinova-Kucera, Lawyer at the Department for the Execution of ECtHR Judgments, focused on the main aspects related to the execution of judgments and presented some relevant examples.

Participants were introduced to the tutors who will accompany them in the implementation of the course for the following 4 months, namely Marius Bartninkas, HELP course tutor for the Lithuanian group, Agnieszka Kluczynska-Cichocka, HELP course tutor for the Polish group, and Maria Andriani Kostopoulou and Diogo Ravara, HELP course tutors for the EU group.

The tutors also presented a brief overview of their respective national context and pinpointed some practical challenges in the field of labour rights, for participants to reflect upon and follow up in their exchanges during the course. The participants, most of them specialised in social and labour rights, had the possibility to share their expectations from the course and exchange with their colleagues.

The participants who successfully complete the course launched under the joint EU-Council of Europe project will receive HELP certificates issued by the Council of Europe.

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The HELP course on “Labour Rights as Human Rights” covers in an interactive way the key concepts, the European system of protection of labour rights (stemming from the Council of Europe and the EU), the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as well as decisions of the European Committee of Social Rights (the ECSR)

The online course is freely available on the Council of Europe HELP e-learning platform, in self-learning format. Its updated version (2021) has been translated in 11 languages. The overall length of the online course is approximatively 13 hours and those who complete it online can obtain an electronic ‘Statement of accomplishment’.