29 August 2019
Law on the Bosphorus VII International Summer school
With placement of candidates pending and following its first call for the 2019 edition of the international
human rights Summer School ‘Law on theBosphorus’, organized annually by İstanbul University Faculty
of Law in collaboration with Leiden Law School, of Leiden University, the office of the Summer School
is pleased to now be able to publish a second call, with further information as to the content of this year’s
program, as well as an updated deadline for further applications.
First and foremost, the Summer School is delighted and honoured to be able to announce that Judge Paulo
Pinto de Albuquerque, Judge and Section Vice-President of the European Court of Human Rights
(ECrtHR) in respect of Portugal since 2011, has accepted our invitation to deliver the keynote address for
the Summer School. As the author of a prolific body of separate opinions attached to judgments of the
ECrtHR, Judge Pinto de Albuquerque’s vast experience and insights will provide the Summer School with
the most robust and meaningful of bases to deepen understanding of the creation and guardianship of
international human rights law by this Court, as a globally recognized central judicial authority in this
domain.
The office of the Summer School is also overjoyed to announce the participation as a lecturer of Dr. Saadet
Yüksel, who was elected in April 2019 as judge to the ECrtHR in respect of Turkey and as such will take
up her nine year term of office in the coming months. As the current Chair of the Department of
Constitutional Law of İstanbul University Faculty of Law, Dr. Yüksel will be teaching from her home turf,
providing the Summer School with a unique opportunity to become acquainted with her vision as to her
weighty duties ahead.
As in previous years, the Summer School is elated and grateful that the 2019 edition will again bring
together a group of excellent lecturers, all highly experienced and noted in the diverse domains of law
which will feature in the Summer School from the lens of international human rights law. This year,
lecturers will include Krisztina Karsai, professor of criminal law and head of the Institute of Criminal
Sciences of the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of the University of Szeged, Cüneyt Yüksel,
professor of international law at İstanbul University Faculty of Law, Aart Hendriks, Aart Hendriks is
professor of Health Law at Leiden University, chair of the Complaints’ Committee for General Physicians
(Western Netherlands), member of the board of supervisors of Erasmus Medical Centre (Rotterdam) and
Zaans Medical Centre (Zaandam), and substitute judge at the District Court of Rotterdam, Jorrit Rijpma,
associate professor of European Law at the Europa Institute of Leiden Law School and Jean Monnet Chair
holder on Security and Mobility in Europe (MOSE) and Eduardo Arenas Catalán, lecturer at the Institute
of Constitutional and Administrative law of Leiden Law School and academic coordinator of Leiden Law
School’s Advanced Master’s in European and International human rights law.
The content and structure of the 2019 edition of the Summer School remains as announced in the first call.
Each year, a particular theme within human rights law is selected as an area of principal focus. The aim of this
theme-driven approach is twofold: on the one hand, the goal is to develop substantive knowledge and
insights in specific fields of human rights law. On the other, selected themes are used as illustrative models
on the basis of which general understanding of the meaning, role, nature and abilities of modern day human
rights law can be deepened. A set goal of the Summer School is further always to approach human rights
law comparatively, looking at its operation in specific (local, temporal or thematic) contexts and always
with regard to its (global) multi-levelled machinery.
In its 7th year, the 2019 ‘Law on the Bosphorus’ Summer School will feature as its over-arching theme
‘Unexpected Obligations’. As such, this year, the Summer School will focus on diverse concepts and
mechanisms which have been introduced into human rights law by judicial design and innovation and
which have led to massive conceptual and concrete expansions of State obligations under human rights
law.
In the past decades, the summary texts of human rights conventions have been intricately developed in the
hands and through the efforts of non-national courts-such asthe ECrtHR. Such courts have in the first place
exponentially extended the scope of protection offered through the rights and freedoms explicitly
guaranteed therein, deepening and broadening the framework of human rights law in accordance with
modern day needs. As the landscape in which human rights law is to be operational changes, such courts
have been called to respond to a great diversity of situations with respect to which the text of conventions
provides no answers. The resultant has been that human rights law has come to cover a great more
substantive terrain than could have been expected at the time human rights conventions were drawn up.
In the second place, human rights courts have also extensively added to the substance of human rights law
through the introduction of different types of obligations, which are not necessarily attached to particular
rights and freedoms - and thus go beyond expansive interpretations of existing bases - but apply in a more
general sense, in principle potentially across the board of human rights law. Such obligations, the scope
and strictness of which again could hardly have been anticipated in the early stages of the development of
human rights law, include positive and extra-territorial obligations, obligations of States acting not as
national entities, but within the framework of membership of international organizations and the obligations
of States in the context of judicial co-operation. In all cases, human rights courts have also developed their
own interpretative and procedural devices and frameworks, allowing them to order the great leaps which
they sometimes make in reconfiguring human rights law to modern needs.
The 2019 Summer School will examine the most innovative aspects of such judicially crafted unexpected
obligations in modern human rights law, critically examining the manner in which they are devised,
regulated and applied. Focusing on diverse fields of law in which unexpected obligations have become
operational, lectures will all contribute to reflections on the function, format and legitimacy of diverse types
of unexpected obligations and the meaning of the introduction thereof for the changing dynamics of the
interaction between human rights law and other legal domains, as well as that between law and society in
general. Themes of the Summer School lectures will include:
- the development and operation of of unexpected obligtaions in diverse domains such as that of
criminal justice, migration, social justice, (security of) vital (digital) infrastructures and the
environment;
- the implications of national and regional diversity in terms of (financial) capabilities, logistics
and social realitiesfor the design and succesful implementation of common standards;
- the nodes of transaction in the multi-level landscape of global transnational and international
human rights law;
- including the role which new human rights actors (such as corporate entities, civil society,
international organizations) play therein.
Throughout, unexpected obligations will be examined critically, in terms of their legitimacy, clarity and
feasibility, as well as from the viewpoint that human rights law should - in its fundamental paradigms as
well as concrete application - leave room for legitimate regional diversity and be inclusive of all global
human rights perspectives.
PROGRAM FORMAT: The summer school will consist of daily lectures, mooting clinics and mooting
sessions which will take place at the closing of the Summer School. At the start of the Summer School,
participants will be assigned to mooting teams and will receive notice of the case which they will be arguing
at the closing mooting. As with the lectures, the cases will all relate ‘unexpected obligation’ themes. After
plenary clarifications, teams will be instructed and coached by lecturers during mooting clinics. The
program also consists of diverse excursions to Criminal Justice Institutions in Turkey, i.e. to Police
headquarters, Forensic and Pathological Institutions, Çağlayan Justice Palace and a penitentiary institution.
These excursions will include unique ‘on location’ lectures by experts in the field.
The mooting sessions will take place on the final day of the summer school. At the closing ceremony,
special certificates will be awarded to the best team as well as to the best individual mooter.
DATE and VENUE: The Summer School will take place between 18-29 August 2019, with 18 August
being reserved for arrival and registration. The program will be held in İstanbul University Faculty of
Law’s historic premises at the heart of İstanbul, Turkey. The Summer School will take full advantage of
the unique opportunities offered by this unique venue, embedding the academic program within the
excitement and beauty of Istanbul.
APPLICATIONS AND FEE: Applications should be sent to summerlaw@istanbul.edu.tr. The updated
deadline is 1 August 2019. A detailed application form will be provided to candidates upon receipt of email.
The Summer School is open to Bachelor and Master Students of Law Schools, as well as PhD-candidates.
Applications should provide contact details, details with respect to phase of study, a current grade list, a
letter of motivation and one reference from a lecturer. The Summer School fee is 300 Euros. Further details
will be provided upon application.
Target group
Law students, lawyers, judges and those who interested in law
Course aim
The summer school will consist of daily lectures, mooting clinics and mooting sessions which will take place at the closing of the Summer School. The program also consists of diverse excursions to Criminal Justice and Migration Institutions in Turkey, i.e. to
Police headquarters, Istanbul Justice Palace and a penitentiary institution.
Fee info
EUR 300: The fee is for the programme expenses. Accommodation, transportation, dinner (etc.) costs are supposed to be met by your own.