30 young law students coming from various highest educational institutions of the Republic of Belarus, went through a selection process and were invited to the Third Summer Camp on Human Rights for Law Students.

The second year in a row German town of Bad Liebenzell has been a kind host for representatives of Belarusian youth – participants of the Summer Camp. International Forum Burg Liebenzell (Academy for Political Education of Youth) become for 10 days (20 – 29 July, 2007) a platform for studying national and international mechanisms of human rights protection.

Summer Camp on Human Rights for Law Students  2007 was organized by several organizations: Foundation for Legal Technologies Development (Kiev, Ukraine), European Exchange and Internationales Forum Burg Liebenzell e.V. Akademie fur politische Bildung und internationale Jugendbegegnung  (Germany), in partnership with Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (Warsaw, Poland).

Educational program of the Summer Camp covered the following topics:

• Introduction into human rights;
• Human rights within Belarusian legislation;
• OSCE: system of labilities and mechanisms of human rights protection;
• European system of human rights protection;
• UN system and mechanisms of human rights protection;
• Public interests protection activities.

Home assignment was an innovation in the Summer Camp on Human Rights for Law Students 2007. Before the Camp started, participants were suggested to work independently on  range of international acts that form a theoretical basis of the educational process in the Summer Camp on Human Rights for Law Students 2007. The list included: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Optional Protocols to the Covenants, etc. The range of international documents was suggested to participants for acquaintance as optional.

Assignment also included analysis and compilation of a catalogue of rights and freedoms (civil, political, and social) according to the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus.

The opportunity for Belarusian law students to visit Strasbourg has traditionally become a distinctive feature of the Summer Camp on Human Rights for Law Students. It is in Strasbourg that students get to see and realize importance of European institutions, pay particular attention to the fact that both the Council of Europe and European Court of Human Rights are effective and working mechanisms of human rights promotion and protection.
In 2007 during these visits, participants of the Summer Camp met a member of the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Mr. Roman Chlapak, and the legal assistant of the European Court of Human Rights Ms. Olga Bobrova who talked about activities of the above mentioned organizations and answered questions of participants of the Summer Camp on Human Rights for Law Students.

Organizers have paid due attention to the trainers and teaching staff of the Summer Camp and, considering experience of the last year, invited experts who apply mechanisms of human rights protection within the European human rights system in practice.

Conduction of the Open Space "What and how can law students do to protect public interests?" has also become a traditional part of the Summer Camp on Human Rights. Participants have discussed a whole range of topics specific for student youth: improvement of work of law clinics in Belarus, possibility of creation of ELSA – Minsk (European Law Students Association), enlightenment on the questions of labor exploitation, rendering legal aid to orphan children, etc.

It is also possible to define topics that are directly related to human rights and public interests protection (human rights education, initiative on promotion of human rights, definition of public interests and problems).

We are glad to state that law students have set further future steps, mentioning concrete actions, such as:

• Accomplishment of better connections between the law clinics on Belarus;
• Creation of  a public association ELSA-Minsk;
• Creation of a lobbying group;
• ART-PROJECT – a series of reports and stories about human rights in Belarus;
• Labor exploitation (informational enlightenment);
• Creation of an initiative group providing legal aid to orphans;
• Conduction of a music festival "LIVE HUMAN RIGHTS", etc.

We have started the program of summer camps for Belarusian law students in the year of 2005.
This was a new target group for us and a new model of work. Today, when three years and three graduations have passed by, we are glad to see that many of alumni stay in professional contact with us, choose topics for their own research in the sphere of Human Rights, continue education in this direction, some of them have become participants of the Human Rights movement, others start  their own projects.

Together with our alumni, we have acquired experience and learned a lot. During the three years we kept working on the program, tried to improve selection requirements, introduced new approaches to the assessment of knowledge. We have become confident that young people – future Belarusian lawyers -- are motivated to be a part of Human Rights discourse, this gives us strength to think about continuation and development of educational and research programs.

We are happy to announce that we remain a team, better to say – have become a team during this work. We are glad that we have acquired reliable partners both in the name of our colleagues that are engaged far more than us into educational activities related to Human Rights, and in the name of organizations that support our activities and make their implementation possible.