Community of Practice

As part of AIJI’s work in legal education, we have now worked closely with 24 Cambodian law lecturers to train them to teach fair trial rights using interactive learning across the 10 universities where they teach. To continue their professional development, AIJI holds monthly ‘Community of Practice’ events that give participants the change to continue their education on a variety of topics, while sharing their challenges and successes and supporting each other’s work.

           

The Community of Practice gatherings were originally only aimed at those who had completed AIJI’s Fair Trial Rights training course, however since April 2017 they have been open to anyone who has an interest in learning more about this topic. Among our cohort are university law lecturers, members of civil society, law professionals, civil servants and researchers. 

The Community meets on the last Saturday of each month. For the last five months the topics for each session have been as follows:

The April session on Human Rights Education  featured an introduction to human rights education by Mr. Lina Tay. The May session was held at the Center for the Study of Humanitarian Law (CSHL) at the Royal University of Law and Economics and featured introductions to human rights research from CSHL Director Mr. Kimsan Soy, CSHL Researcher Ms. Ratana Ly and CSHL Librarian Ms. Sophorn Tuy. 

In June Lina Tay ran the session on human rights and gender, introducing participants to the teaching technique of ‘fishbowl dialogue’, in which the class observes a small group discuss a topic and then individuals can swap places with those in the small group if they have more to add to the conversation. In July Ms. Noy Sophary, a Senior Legal Consultant at the ECCC, presented her article “Fundamental Rights in Cambodian Criminal Law” to the cohort. Ms. Daniella Montemarano, a Washington DC-based mediator also assisted this session, facilitating an activity in which participants identified various fair trial protections in international and domestic law.

Most recently on 26 August Mr. Kong Pisey of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights gave a presentation to participants on digital rights and digital security. The session also showed participants how to incorporate ‘spectrum exercises’ into their classes.

In September AIJI will be conducting an evaluation of its Community of Practice series to date and ask participants for feedback on how to improve the program. More information will be posted about future sessions when it becomes available. In the meantime if you have any questions, please contact Mr. Lina Tay by phone at (+855) 096 818 1145 or by email on lina.tay@handacentercambodia.org.