Short Courses

I. Eastern African Training School on Human Rights, Intellectual Property and Access to Medicines (EASHRIPATM)

I. INTRODUCTION

The Human Right and Peace Center (HURIPEC) at Makerere University in Uganda hosts Training Institute on Access to Medicines, Human Rights and Intellectual Property.  The Program seeks to provide a foundation on which there can be further targeted research- both basic and policy oriented in the area of access to medicines, human rights and intellectual property. 

The participants receive focused training on the effects of applying a human rights frame work to access to medicines law and policy including;

• intellectual property, competition, medicines regulation (covering pricing and availability measures) and trade law frameworks;

• deal with the most urgent AEM issues affecting the region, in particular, anti-counterfeiting legislation (proposed and established), medicines stock out and quality of medicines actually available;

• Examine the potential regional initiatives necessary to promote access to medicines in the EAC region, and critically consider those policies that may promote research and development into neglected diseases and conditions for which there are few medicines.

Ultimately, the objective of the program is to create a cadre of legal practitioners and activists fully equipped with basic skills in access to medicines, human rights and intellectual property in order to promote grater policy attention, scholarship and activism to issues of crucial importance, literally dealing with questions of life and death. 

A comprehensive reading pack containing key legal documents and contemporary scholarship is provided to participants to provide them with a tool kit for future reference in their advocacy and policy work.  After the course, participants should be able to engage in a variety of strategies to increase access to medicines in the context of an increasing focus on intellectual property protection in their individual countries, including strategic litigation by bringing cases related to access to medicines in their  jurisdictions.

The teaching program is arranged in modules focusing on specific areas of Access to medicines, Human Rights and Intellectual property.  The two-week course involves a theoretical component to equip participants with a broad conceptual basis on issues related to AEM, as well as a second more practical and focused component dealing with topical areas of AEM which are of immediate concern to activists in the region.

Facilitators are experts who specialize in the areas of international trade, intellectual property, access to medicines and human rights.  Among them are legal and human rights practitioners drawn from both the Intellectual Property and Human Rights sectors, as well as from Academia and the non-government community, particularly Health Rights Activists.

II. ELIGIBILITY

The teaching program will be conducted in English and is targeted at lawyers, activists, policy makers and other professionals engaged with issues of balancing human rights and obligations under the international intellectual property regime. Participants are also drawn from academia, civil society organizations (CSOs) and the public service.  The course is also be open to students in their penultimate year at law school as well as those undertaking graduate study, with a view of enabling such graduates appreciate the importance of this growing area of legal scholarship and practice, while also equipping them with skills that would enable them to bring some influence to bear on the different spheres of legal concern in which they will be opening once their careers begin.

• Down load Brochure

Back to top

II. African School on International Criminal Law (ASICL)

Back to top

III. Summer School on Law, Human Rights and HIV / AIDS

I. INTRODUCTION

Few pandemics in modern human history have wreaked as much havoc as HIV/AIDS.  Although it is a disease with global ramifications, there is little doubt that the African continent has been among the most severally affected by its impact.  Estimates put the number of people living with HIV/AIDS at 42 million, 74% of whom live in Sub-Saharan Africa.  HIV/AIDS clearly has an African face.  Furthermore, despite having been around for over two decades, the main focus of the response has either been epidemiological, or on attitudinal change.  Most critically, such responses under-estimate the place of law and of the legal machinery as either facilitator or as obstacle to the design of effective measures to tackle the problem.  The problem is compounded by the lack of a human rights-based approach to addressing the issue.

Some attention has been given to the legal dimensions of the pandemic.  However, these are surprisingly few and far between.  Thus, while public officials and non-governmental workers are concerned with increasing the supply of anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs, they pay little attention to the possible questions of discrimination and inequality that may arise, for example, the impact of any program on displaced persons, on sexual minorities and on other groups who largely fall under the radar. Furthermore, when measures of legal reform are pursued and eventually adopted-as has recently been the case in Uganda-they often adopt a punitive, discriminatory and anti-rights posture.  In this way they reinforce a stigma and increase conditions of marginalization and inequity.
Despite significant developments in addressing HIV/AIDS pandemic in general, there is still a lacuna in the teaching and dissemination of knowledge about the link between HIV/AIDS, law and human rights in the East African region.  The subject is lost within the broader context of concern with issues such as Medical Professional Ethics; the Liability of Health Workers, and Legislation on Public Health.  Furthermore, given the experience with the case of Uganda in which infection rates stabilized for some time but then registered a regression, it is abundantly clear that there is a need to link the issue to its varied human rights dimensions.

In light of the above, the Human Rights & Peace Centre (HURIPEC)  at Makerere University in Uganda, established a two-week program for teaching Law, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS to lawyers, activists and policy makers-whether in the Public Service, in private practice , academia or in the non-governmental arena.  The course introduces and trains participants on the basic elements of law, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS, beginning with a broad examination of the rights and epidemiological issues involved.  Special attention is paid to the situation of persons who have been particularly marginalized by the legal discourse on the pandemic, including persons living with HIV/AIDS, sexual minorities, children and displacees.  It also focuses on the manner in which the law can be innovatively and progressively used as a mechanism to improve attention to the plight of those infected and affected by the pandemic.

In addition, the program provides a foundation on which there can be further targeted research-both basic and policy oriented in the area of law, Human rights and HIV/AIDs.  Ultimately, the objective of the program/course is to create a cadre of legal practitioners fully equipped with basic skills in Law, Human Rights and HIV/AIDS in order to promote greater policy attention, scholarship and activism on an area of law that is of increasing significance to the basic right to health, to life and to an adequate standard of living implicated by the pandemic.   With this course, not only is there an opportunity to influence the government and the public arena, but eventually for a more holistic, inter-disciplinary approach to an area that is largely regarded as Medical.

II. ELIGIBILITY

The course is primarily intended for mid-and senior level lawyers activists and policy makers, as well as recent graduates of African law Schools (of not more than five years duration), who are actively engaged in advocacy, public interest litigation and other innovative legal strategies to address the HIV/AIDS pandemic to enable such graduates to appreciate the importance of this growing area of legal scholarship and practice, while also equipping them with skills that would allow them to bring some influence to bear on the different spheres of legal concern in which they will be operating once their careers begin.  At the end of the training, participants are presented with Certificates of Attendance.

Back to top