Università Roma Tre

Course description:
The “International Humanitarian Law Legal Clinic” (IHL Legal Clinic) has been established in 2016 to permit students to acquire a sound knowledge on international humanitarian law, cooperate on a pro bono basis on projects with leading international and national institutions operating in this area and develop significant skills and a humanitarian-oriented approach beneficial for their competences, future professional activities and civil awareness. The IHL Legal Clinic is an optional course (7 CFU) opens to students from Roma Tre and those involved in exchange programmes (eg. Erasmus) qualifying for a final mark. The working language is English (students can also qualify for ‘Lingua giuridica’).

So far students involved in the Roma Tre IHL Legal Clinic have provided support to some of the most relevant international and domestic stakeholders as: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); Amnesty International; NATO (Allied Command Operations Legal Office at SHAPE); the Italian Red Cross, IHL Commission; the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (see below ‘Past Projects’).

In 2023/2024 students of the IHL Legal Clinic will:
A) Acquire a sound knowledge of international humanitarian law through introductory lectures.
B) Be involved in research and practice-oriented projects projects commissioned by relevant stakeholders as International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the NATO (Allied Command Operations Legal Office at SHAPE). See below for further details: ‘2023 Projects’;
C) Be part of the IHL Red Project, managed in cooperation with the IHL Legal Clinics of Roma Tre, Leiden (Netherlands) and Bochum (Germany) as part of the EU-funded Project KA2. Students will have the unique opportunity to take part in a IHL legal clinics exchange conference organized by Roma Tre University, Leiden and Bochum to take place in Rome (3 days in April or May 2024) to present their projects and attend IHL conferences and events with students of other IHL legal clinics. Costs will be covered by Roma Tre University.

A selection process will permit to identify interested students due to some limits related to the management of the IHL Legal Clinic – eg. max. around 10/12 students (see below ‘relevant dates and application process’). Any student enrolled at the Department of Law (including Erasmus students or other foreign students involved in exchange projects) are invited to join the selection process.


Course Learning Objectives
• To provide students with a proper understanding of international humanitarian law and its relevance in the regulation of armed conflicts. A preliminary set of lectures managed by Prof. Bartolini will permit students to get familiar with international humanitarian law and issues of public international law relevant for this course. It is not required for students to have previously attended courses on international humanitarian law or public international law.
• To permit students to professionally interact with international institutions acting in the area of international humanitarian law through the participation in research projects and clinical activities commissioned by organizations partners to the Roma Tre IHL Legal Clinic
• The IHL Legal Clinic is inspired by a ‘learning by doing’ approach permitting students to develop their competences in legal research, drafting, writing and organization of activities, to facilitate the transfer of theoretical analysis into a practical and humanitarian-oriented perspective.

Course Learning Activities:
To achieve the above objectives, students will have to:
• Actively participate in the projects of the IHL Legal Clinic;
• Acquire a sound knowledge of international humanitarian law also through the textbook.
• Engage in class discussions/debates.

Assessment tools and attendance policy:
Students will be assessed on the basis of their contribution to the projects carried out the IHL Legal Clinic and through a final review of their knowledge on international humanitarian law. Projects developed by the IHL Legal Clinic also require students to prepare draft reports and other preliminary material to be presented in class. Students are expected to participate in all classes.

2022/2023 Projects and activities of the IHL Legal Clinic:
The IHL Legal Clinic will be managed in two phases:
A) Students will get familiar with international humanitarian law: Prof. Bartolini will manage
a series of lectures aimed to make students familiar with international humanitarian law (October-mid November 2023 see calendar below). Presentations by external speakers as officers of the Armed Forces will also be arranged. Students will be required to get familiar with the textbook: Nils Melzer, International Humanitarian Law. A Comprehensive Introduction (downloadable here). Relevant sections of the textbook will be discussed in class.

B) Clinical activities: From mid-November onwards, students will start to manage research projects involving relevant stakeholders.
In particular students will work on:
- Partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross: “International Humanitarian Law in Action” database (https://ihl-in-action.icrc.org/). Students elaborate reports aimed at identifying real case-studies on compliance with international by States and organized armed groups based on open-access information. The ICRC has received positive feed-backs on this new instrument, to be used in training and dissemination activities for armed forces/organized armed groups, students and civil society, and has made reference to it in the 2018 statement to the UN Security Council open debate on protection of civilians in armed conflict.
- The partnership with the NATO Legal Office at SHAPE (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe) will imply cooperation in the activities of LAWFAS (Legal Advisors Worktop Functional Area System), an on-line platform managed within the NATO’s website aimed to facilitate document researches and ensure an easy access to all the relevant information for the legal community of several thousands of military officers and legal advisers linked with this on-line system from NATO countries and partner countries. Students are involved in the elaboration of desk-studies on relevant developments in international humanitarian law, as complemented by document materials, finally uploaded in the LAWFAS website (https://lawfas.hq.nato.int/Roma%20Tre/SitePages/Home.aspx) and circulate to the NATO legal community through specific newsletters. Past topics managed by the Roma Tre IHL Legal Clinic could be consulted below.
C) Participation in the IHL Red Project, managed in cooperation with the IHL Legal Clinics of Roma Tre, Leiden (Netherlands) and Bochum (Germany) as part of the EU-funded Project KA2. Students will have the unique opportunity to take part in a IHL exchange conference organized by Roma Tre University in cooperation with Bochum and Leiden IHL Legal Clinics (3 days in April or May 2024) to present their projects and attend IHL conferences and events involving leading experts. Costs of participation of students in this exchange conference will be covered by Roma Tre University

Nils Melzer, International Humanitarian Law. A Comprehensive Introduction (free download)