How law students learn about human rights today will shape how justice is delivered tomorrow. That was the shared conviction of educators from across Bosnia and Herzegovina who came together in mid-December to reflect on how to strengthen human rights teaching at law faculties.

Fifteen law faculty professors from universities in Sarajevo, Banja Luka and Mostar gathered on 17 and 18 December 2025 for a training organised by the Council of Europe on the integration of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights in university law curricula.

Participants agreed that while human rights are formally included in most law programmes, teaching remains uneven, sporadic, and largely theoretical. They often fail to equip students with the practical skills needed to apply the Convention in professional settings. Among these are legal reasoning, critical analysis and the independent use of the Court’s case law in real cases.

The discussions focused on the importance of systematic and practice-oriented human rights education. Sessions addressed existing challenges to institutionalising this approach across universities.

Educators stressed that better training at the university level leads directly to better legal arguments, while the ability to independently apply the Convention standards contributes to higher-quality reasoning, stronger domestic application of the Convention, and more effective protection of people’s rights.

Participants called for expanded and updated curricula, more interactive teaching, and greater use of real court cases to encourage critical assessment of judicial practice. They also highlighted the potential of responsibly introducing AI tools to support learning, research and analysis.

The training was carried out as part of the Council of Europe project “Support to a coherent national implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights and facilitating the execution of judgements of the European Court of Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, which is funded through the Action plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina for the period 2022-2025.