The conference concluded the third cycle of Human Rights House Network’s International Law in Advocacy program, which trains lawyers from CIS countries in the theoretical and practical aspects of international human rights law.

ILIA lawyers have followed a three-year online education program on how to apply international law in their daily practice in their own countries. They have attended regional and international conferences to complement this learning, and the conference in Vilnius concludes the formal, structured part of the learning process. These lawyers will enter an active, international network of ILIA alumni lawyers. At the conference they will share knowledge and discuss opportunities for further cooperation between alumni from different countries and partner organisations from different Human Rights Houses.

On the first day of the conference, participants will be welcomed by the President of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania. They will then take part in a moot court, in which they will demonstrate their knowledge in the field of human rights and share their experience with colleagues from other countries. International experts will judge the moot court.

On the second day of the conference, international experts will discuss how to effectively use UN and the Council of Europe human rights mechanisms in the CIS region. National experts from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine will speak on the application of these human rights mechanisms in their own countries, and representatives from the Human Rights House Network and other international organisations will present ways to overcome the challenges to implementing these mechanisms.

Participants will speak about their achievements, share their impressions of the course, and discuss opportunities for further cooperation between alumni from different countries and partner organisations.

While participation in Vilnius is limited to those within the ILIA program, Human Rights House Network will stream presentations and discussions from the conference throughout the day at: 

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/project-ilia.

Participants and experts will post comments and updates under the hashtag #ILIA2016