On 8 July 2021, the Council of Europe launched a free Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) online course on “Asylum and Human Rights” in Tenerife, Spain, in co-operation with the Bar Association of Tenerife (ICATF) and Spain's General Council of Lawyers. The session, which was held in a hybrid format, gathered legal professionals working in the context of migration, especially from the Canary Islands. They got familiarised with the HELP programme of the Council of Europe and its online platform that includes a catalogue of almost 40 courses on human rights.
Participants were welcomed by D. José Manuel Niederleytner García-Lliberós, Decano from ICATF, D. Blas Jesús Imbroda Ortiz, President of the Subcommittee on Immigration and International Protection of the General Council of Spanish Lawyers and Eva Pastrana, Head of Unit of the European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals. The course’s tutor is Noemi Alarcón.
The programme included a presentation of the HELP programme and a course introduction, followed by an overview of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, the 1951 Refugee Convention. The session also included a presentation of the activities of the Special Representative of the Council of Europe Secretary General on Migration and Refugees, Drahoslav Štefánek, and a presentation of the relevant case law of the European Court of Human Rights.
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.