Twenty eight law students from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia took part in the Human Rights Summer School: “Human Rights in a Digital Era” organised by the Council of Europe from 24-28 June 2019 in Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The School’s aim was to address the challenges to human rights posed by the development of the new technologies, including the risks of misuse of personal data in the light of the protection of the right to privacy.

In an intensive interactive 5-day course students learned how to balance the freedom of expression and the private life, discussed the issues related to the right to be forgotten in the cyberspace and by other holders of private information and participated in the debate on the advantages and risks of the ever growing use of the artificial intelligence. 

Presentations were complemented with workshops in which participants were tasked to analyse, comment and present arguments in respect to actual and hypothetical cases concerning the ECHR-related challenges. The School was be concluded with a moot court competition in which the teams tried to apply the received knowledge and skills in a simulation of a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights.

The Summer School is a result of the Council of Europe’s effort to extend the human rights education to future legal professionals. It was supported through the project: “Initiative for Legal Certainty and Efficient Judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, funded by voluntary contribution of the Government of Norway and the Action “Strengthening the effective legal remedies to systemic human rights violations in Serbia", which is being implemented as a part of the joint Council of Europe and the European Union Programme “Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey II”.