On August 10, 2022, Mr Steen Nørlov, The Head of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine, met with Deputy Minister of Justice Valeriia Kolomiets to discuss cooperation in the field of protecting the rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and victims of war in accordance with European standards, in particular, the system of free legal aid (FLA).

The Council of Europe Office in Ukraine within the Project “Internal Displacement in Ukraine: Building Solutions. Phase II” and its previous projects on IDPs rights has been cooperating with the Coordination Centre on Legal Aid Provision in the field of IDPs rights protection since 2016.

The CoE has supported a wide range of capacity building activities, in particular: large number of trainings and ToTs for the FLA staff and lawyers on IDPs rights and Council of Europe standards were delivered; HELP distant learning course on Internal Displacement was tutored for 5 groups of FLA staff and lawyers; leaflets, guidelines on IDPs rights protection were developed and widely disseminated; on-line platform information materials on IDPs rights were developed; raising awareness campaigns on FLA to IDPs were held Ukraine-wide, etc.

Steen Nørlov said that in line with the Adjustments to the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine, the Council of Europe currently provides support to FLA system to address new challenges in the field of human rights protection of IDPs and conflict-affected people. In particular, the Project on Internal Displacement has delivered a series of workshops on trauma and stress resilience for the FLA staff in May 2022. The Project plans to hold 5 webinars for the FLA staff will be delivered and uploaded on the on-line platform of the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Provision to be accessible for distant learning.

“Further activities of the Council of Europe Office in Ukraine will focus on legal protection of different categories of the war-affected people in line with Council of Europe standards (including IDPs, returnees, deported people, missing persons, separated families, victims of severe violations of human rights and others).  We are open for the dialogue on cooperation and further support”, Mr Nørlov said.