Law students from Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) are helping Glasgow school pupils to stand up for their human rights.
Human Rights Day, (10th December 2016) commemorating the day in 1948 when the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The 2016 campaign urges the public to ‘stand up for someone’s rights’, a call being heeded by Bachelor of Laws (LLB) students through the GCU Law Clinic.
Since its launch in 2014, the Clinic has provided advice to a wide range of clients and taken to Glasgow city centre to offer its services.
Our Street Law programme runs interactive workshops with pupils, making them more aware of the laws that affect them in their daily lives. Six schools have taken part so far, with further sessions planned in the New Year.
“Human rights are a key theme for Street Law and always spark great discussions amongst the pupils,” explained fourth year LLB student Rachel Bond, the Law Clinic’s Student Director. “And the Human Rights Day campaign of standing up for someone’s rights is exactly what the GCU Law Clinic is about. We are proud to provide free and confidential advice to people who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for Legal Aid or afford professional legal advice.”
GCU Law lecturers are involved in a wide range of human rights-related research, including examining organ donation law and end of life choices as well as access for socially disadvantaged people to the European Court of Human Rights and legal remedies for the victims of historic sex abuse.
Law Lecturer Dr Andrew Tickell said: “Human rights now underpin a startling array of our legal scholarship and teaching. They are at the heart of our constitutional law, central to immigration, animate ongoing Scottish debates on land reform, and go to the core of the law of international development. For lawyers, human rights issues are everywhere.”
And human rights is also a major focus for public policy analysts at GCU who lead research into the impact of public spending cuts on women, disabled people and carers.
GCU delivers the MSc Citizenship and Human Rights, a popular part-time programme for professionals and volunteers in the third and public sectors.
Dr Angela O’Hagan, Lecturer in Social and Public Policy, said: “In Scotland just now we have opportunities to respond differently on issues of equality, care, migration, public services – issues that are central to the MSc in Citizenship and Human Rights and are shaped by what is going on across the world. All of this reinforces the importance of human rights principles and the need to develop human rights based approaches to policy and services in Scotland.”