The aim of the course is to strengthen the capacity of judicial officers, lawyers and civil-society actors, and to advance informed debate about the role of courts in realising socio-economic rights (and, therefore poverty alleviation).

The course is presented against the backdrop of the very recent coming into force of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on 5 May 2013. The Optional Protocol allows individuals to submit communications (cases) to the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. South Africa is not yet a party to either the Covenant or the Protocol.

This course is taught by experts in the field, including retired South African Constitutional Court judge, Justice Zac Yacoob, and constitutional experts Professor Sandy Liebenberg (from Stellenbosch University) and Professor Alicia Yamin (from Harvard University).

The course forms part of the Global School on Socio-Economic Rights, and is a collaboration between the Centre for Human Rights and six other institutions: the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights; the Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University, Finland; the Chair in Human Rights, Stellenbosch University; the Los Andes University, Colombia; the National Judicial Academy, Nepal; and the Francois Xavier Bagnoud Centre for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University, USA.

The Centre presents ten such one-week intensive courses during the year, and scholarships are available. For more information about these courses, consult the Centre’s website at http://www1.chr.up.ac.za/index.php/projects/ahrc.html.