Being an academic institution, cooperation with other academic institutions and independent human rights centres for the promotion of human rights forms a natural and central part of the Institute’s work. Thus, the Institute maintains a close cooperation with Lund University and several other academic institutions in Sweden and abroad.
Beginning with 1991, the Institute and the Law Faculty offered the master in international human rights law programme for Swedish and foreign students. Currently the master program has three specialisations in human rights, intellectual property and labour standards. Raoul Wallenberg Institute lecturers, from Lund and its international network, contribute through course directorship, lecturing, and student supervision. Outside Lund, academic education through courses in human rights and international law has been offered to students at the Police Academy in Växjö and students in Halmstad, as well as in various other universities in Sweden.
The Faculty of Law at Lund University has, since more than 20 years back, in close cooperation with the Institute, been offering an a master’s programme in international human rights law. The programme runs over two years providing the students with in-depth knowledge in international human rights law and humanitarian law and within the framework of this programme students, who so wish, are provided with the opportunity to specialise in intellectual property rights law or international labour law. The programme is open for students from all countries and since the beginning of the programme; approximately 130 students from developing countries have graduated from the programme with scholarships provided by the Institute through funding from Sida.
In addition to co-hosting the master’s programme in International human rights law at Lund University, the Institute also contributes to academic human rights education at other academic institutions in Sweden, such as the Institute for Police Education at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden, The Institute also contributes to the European Commission coordinated ”European Master of Arts in Human Rights and Democratization”, in Venice, Italy.
Support to academic education in international human rights law forms a central part of the Institute’s international programme activities. A key objective is to support the development of capacity with academic institutions and independent human rights centres to plan, implement and deliver human rights education and train¬ing and contribute to the institutionalisation of such programmes. From the headquarters in Lund and the field offices abroad, the Institute contributes to the promotion of academic education in several ways, such as curricula development, translation and publication of literature, establishment of resource centres, education and training, staff exchange, etc.