On 25 May 2021, the Council of Europe launched its first ever regional HELP online course on “Refugee and Migrant Children” in the Western Balkans, in co-operation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the EU´s European Asylum Support Office (EASO), hosted by the Council of Europe Office in Sarajevo. The HELP course on Refugee and Migrant Children targets legal professionals and child protection services from six beneficiaries in the region: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
The regional launch was organised within the scope of the regional action “HELP in the Western Balkans” which is a part of the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, implemented by the Council of Europe, in co-operation with the Office of the Council of Europe Special Representative on Migration and Refugees.
The course is being translated and adapted into Albanian, Bosnian, Macedonian, Montenegrin and Serbian. Once the regional course is completed, all these language versions will be freely available for self-learning at the HELP e-learning platform.
* This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence
On 26 MAY 2021, The Council of Europe/UNHCR HELP course on Asylum and Human Rights was launched in an online seminar gathering legal professionals from several EU countries (Bulgaria, France, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden). The online session was organised by the European Union and the Council of Europe funded "HELP in the EU II" project.
The HELP course “Asylum and Human Rights” covers in an interactive way the key concepts, the international and European (UN, CoE and EU) framework related to asylum and the impressive body of case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). One of the key reference materials to develop this course has been the Handbook on European law relating to asylum, borders and immigration, developed jointly by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Court of Human Rights. The course was initially developed in 2015 jointly by the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) Programme of the Council of Europe (CoE) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). It was updated in 2021 under the EU-CoE “HELP in the EU II” project to contain the most recent developments.
The course consists of an introductory module, as well as 4 specific modules addressing the main aspects related to asylum: non-refoulement; the right to life and prohibition of ill-treatment; detention and reception; family life and effective remedies.
The HELP online course on Asylum and Human Rights is also available in a self-learning format on the HELP e-learning platform to any legal professional interested in the topic. It can be followed in English and French as well as Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Greek, Flemish, Italian, Georgian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, and Turkish. Those who complete it in self-learning mode can obtain an electronic ‘Statement of accomplishment’.