Anadolu University in Turkey, in cooperation with RWI’s Turkey Programme, will host the world’s preeminent conference on justice education this July.The Global Alliance for Justice Education’s 8th Worldwide Conference will be held at Anadolu University from 22-28 July 2015. To learn more about the event, we recently posed a few questions to Professor Ufuk Aydin, the Dean of the Law Faculty at Anadolu University.
Why did Anadolu University chose to host this prestigious conference?
We were at the 6th and 7th conferences and we were very impressed. This is a very serious organisation that is working mainly on clinical legal education, which is something we are focusing on today. It’s the biggest organisation in the world on clinical legal education. We are proud to say that this is the biggest internatoinal conference on clinical legal education in Turkey.
What is the focus of this year’s conference?
The motto of this year’s conference is “Justice Education for a Just Society.” It will mostly deal with clinical legal education, but also many other aspects of legal education, justice education and human rights.
Protecting human rights is a major issue at the moment around the world and in Turkey. There are many problems to be solved and academicians have lots to say about how to solve the problems. We will gather around 400 academics from all around the world at this conference.
How are human rights and clinical legal education interlinked?
Clinical legal education is a way to teach justice education and to teach human rights in practice. In our courses, we teach law and human rights on a theoretical basis. But by clinical education you can teach these subjects by practicing it and give examples of real cases and by having live client clinics where students get to see people who have problems and whose human rights may be being violated. It’s a practical way to teach about human rights and protect human rights.
What do you hope to achieve by hosting this conference?
First of all, our students are very happy that we will have such a conference. The people in my university are very proud to be cooperating with such a well-known organisation and to have such a congress.
I think this conference will lead to interesting discussions and in the end will make some contributions to clinical legal education, justice education, and to the issue of human rights and democracy. Together, we will all contribute to make improvements where there are challenges in these areas.
Another outcome, is that it will put Anadolu University on the map internationally in the field of clincial legal education.
More about Clinical Work at Anadolu University Law Faculty
Clinical legal education programmes introduce a new methodology to legal education that aim to empower law professors, law students and learners to understand the basis of law and respect for human rights at the grassroots levels. These programmes aim to develop critical thinking and problem solving skills of students and to encourage students to interact with the real life experiences and social justice issues of the communities where they will serve when they graduate.
RWI has been collaborating with Anadolu University Law Faculty since 2011 to develop their own Clinical Programmes.