The Role of University and Mosque-based Law Clinics in Promoting Human Rights Education in Muslim Societies

Abstract

Human rights education, as a significant factor for improving the development of human rights culture in the world, has been the main concern for human rights actors and international institutions in recent decades. Many activities have been performed in this respect, one of the most important of which is the Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, adopted by the UN General Assembly (137/66 res. 19 Des. 2011). Nevertheless, human rights education has not been able to be promoted and achieve its objectives desirably up to now. It seems that the absence of a proper educational method is one of the most important factors for this failure. Additionally, education of human rights in Muslim societies grapples with the added challenge of contradiction of religion- human rights discourse. Accordingly, the present article, besides elaborating on the university legal clinics, aims to explain the advantages of the clinical legal education of human rights and take steps toward the preclusion of the difficulties of academic law clinics through presenting this method of education in mosque-based law clinics. Furthermore, it attempts to demonstrate that how mosque-based legal clinics can, in conformity with the existing international instruments, provide inexpensive, local, common, interactive and stable means for human rights education in Muslim communities, and reduce the contradiction in religion-human rights discourse simultaneously.

Keywords

• human rights
• university law clinics
• human rights education
• mosque-based law clinics