Contribution from the Council of Europe

For the past twenty years, the Council of Europe and the European Law Students’ Association have been cooperating closely in order to spread the values that bring us together: Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law. The cooperation that started with different projects such as Legal Research Groups, and Campaigns reached its peak with the signing of the Human Rights Partnership between the Council of Europe and ELSA in 2008. Since 2012, ELSA, in cooperation with the Council of Europe, has been organising the world’s largest English-speaking human rights-oriented moot court competition, the European Human Rights Moot Court Competition, which has been recently renamed after the first female Judge of the European Court of Human Rights. Over 10 years, this Competition has become the greatest tool and flagship project of both organisations in addressing the pressing concerns in the field of human rights and rule of law.

During the two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, the whole world had to adjust their lives to the requirements of a virtual reality which also severely affected the activities of the Council of Europe and ELSA. This year, our priority has been to support ELSA to gradually return to its physical events and we did it with great success. For these past two years, the Helga Pedersen Moot Court Competition replaced the real pleading rooms in the Council of Europe, Palais de l’Europe and in the European Court of Human Rights with the virtual pleading rooms in Regional Rounds and the Final Oral Round. But this year we returned to our traditional premises and the Council of Europe welcomed students from all over Europe to its Headquarters. This competition could not have been this successful without the support of the Permanent Representations of Italy, Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands, as well as the City of Strasbourg to whom we are grateful for their cooperation throughout the years. But also ELSA, as the main organiser of this competition, took a fundamental role in its development. To that end, Samira Safarova the Vice-President in charge of Academic Activities of the International Board of ELSA took every step that needed to be taken, with utmost diligence in order to ensure a swift change from the virtual environment to the physical one, as well as a smooth running of the competition throughout this edition.

The connection between ELSA and the Council of Europe was also strengthened through the campaigns developed throughout the year, regarding privacy in the digital age. As in previous editions, we extended our contribution to raising awareness on this topic by providing the Council of Europe Visibility Materials to the initiatives organised by more than 40 ELSA Groups. We are very proud to support ELSA with their initiatives aimed at raising awareness and educating civil society on important issues, such as the threats that arise from technology. We have done so this year and we hope to continue to do so in the future.

This year was a year of success for ELSA and the Council of Europe is proud to be a steadfast supporter of the Association, thus bringing human rights, rule of law and democracy closer to all law students and young lawyers in Europe.