Summer school - Protection and right of refugees

The Cross-Border Institute for International Studies and Criminal Justice, together with the Faculty of Legal, Social and Political Sciences of the "Dunărea de Jos" University from Galati, in partnership with the UNHCR Representation in Romania, organized from June 28th until July 1st 2017, the 5th edition of the Summer School on Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, Refugee Law and International Relations, as an international event with the participation of researchers, teachers and students from Italy, Ukraine and the Republic Moldova, in addition to the participating students from Galați, Bucharest and Târgoviște.

The Summer School's programme was focused on two separate components, a theoretical one and other aiming at developing social and multidisciplinary communication skills. The theoretical part was characterized by lectures given by experts from different relevant fields in the refugee area (academic, institutional, legal and associative), and aimed to analyze and deepen current concepts in areas such as current challenges of refugee issues at European and international level, the relationship between national security, state sovereignty and refugee protection, European and international policies on security threats arising from the link between migratory flows and terrorism, aspects related to trafficking of human beings, public policies on the protection of refugees in the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, as well as other aspects of insuring refugee protection of the mechanisms for implementing this protection worldwide.

As for the previous editions of the summer school, thus respecting the tradition started at the first edition of this event, besides the lectures, a series of other activities were organized to present students with a number of practical aspects, such as the presentation of a thematic film on protection of the refugees, the organization of a simulated trial on refugees' issue, as well as visits to the Galaţi Accommodation Center for Asylum Seekers and to the Galaţi-Giurgiulești Border Crossing Point.

The Summer School ended with a round table debating aspects of the implications of the refugee crisis and the security challenges in the European Space, after which the students passed a test to assess the acquired knowledge and were been handed a certificate of attendance.