The main partners and beneficiaries of the Project were Bar Associations, lawyers, human rights defenders and NGOs.

The main objective of the Project was to develop the national capacities for effective human rights protection by increasing knowledge and skills on anti-discrimination aspects under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the Revised European Social Charter (RESC) and admissibility criteria before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), through:

• enabling lawyers and human rights defenders in the partner countries to successfully litigate cases based on the ECHR and on the RESC, in proceedings before national courts, as well as before the ECtHR in the case of well-substantiated claims;
• avoiding submission to the ECtHR of manifestly ill-founded or inadmissible claims.

The following outputs were delivered and results achieved:

• a total of 163 legal professionals completed in-depth training to become national trainers on the ECHR and the RESC with special emphasis on anti-discrimination;
• a new HELP course on “Anti-Discrimination” was developed and adapted to the national orders of the countries involved in the Projec;
• trainers trained have carried out more than 130 cascade training sessions across the region, which benefitted to nearly 4700 lawyers and human rights defenders. Training sessions by these trainers on ECHR continued after the Project’s end;
• lawyers trained by the Project are actively invoking discrimination in cases before the domestic courts and specialised anti-discrimination institutions.
• the regional network-building component of the Project resulted in useful idea exchanges and closer ties between Bar associations;
• country-specific Guidelines were developed on the use of domestic remedies in anti-discrimination cases;

Follow-up

Through a number of bilateral Projects the Council of Europe continues to work with the lawyers in the recipient countries further building their capacities to apply the ECHR and the ECtHR case law.  The Council of Europe also continues to strengthen the capacities of national training institutions and Bars to deliver training on these topics in line with the European standards and the methodology of the HELP Programme.