Grenoble Law SchoolLaw at the top

The Master's degree in Civil Liberties Law, specializing in Human Rights and the History of Human Rights (DHDH), is a two-year program designed to train lawyers specializing in civil liberties law. This highly specialized program is designed to provide students with the knowledge they need to analyze legal situations involving the protection of rights and to develop strategies for implementing them. Focusing on the legal dimension of human rights, the program takes a cross-disciplinary approach in order to give graduates the ability to adapt to the diversity and evolution of the situations they will encounter in their professional lives.

This master's degree is the result of the 2021 merger of the two tracks of the Law of Freedoms program: Fundamental Rights Litigation & History, Theory, and Practice of Human Rights.
 

In video :

Educational objectives

The program enables students to acquire both solid theoretical and historical knowledge (on the processes of recognizing and guaranteeing human rights, on the sources and regime of rights and freedoms) and practical knowledge of the mechanisms (litigious or otherwise) that ensure the guarantee of fundamental rights. Courses devoted to fundamental subjects (aimed at mastering the concepts and mechanisms of civil liberties law) are thus complemented by courses that provide guidance in line with their career plans (immigration, asylum, and nationality law, criminal and prison law, international and European human rights law, environmental law & climate action, in conjunction with the University Diploma in Environmental Law, etc.) and to acquire pre-professional skills.

The great originality of this program lies in its cross-disciplinary and multidisciplinary nature. The Master's in Civil Liberties Law offers a rare opportunity within a legal curriculum to transcend the traditional divisions between branches of law, allowing students to gain a realistic understanding of major national, European, and international issues concerning human rights.

Professionals are heavily involved in the training, and significant emphasis is placed on innovative teaching methods (legal clinic, participation in European and national moot court competitions, preparation for summary reports, oral examinations, etc.), which highlight the practical aspects of the field being studied, and on assessments common to several subjects.

Benefits of the training

An experienced and committed team

Led by a professor of public law and a professor of legal history, both specialists in human rights, the Master's degree in Human Rights and History of Human Rights is supported by a teaching team composed of professors and researchers in public law, private law, and legal history, as well as specialized practitioners, all of whom are passionate about guaranteeing rights and freedoms. With over 30 years of experience (the Law of Freedoms program is the legacy of one of the oldest human rights programs in France), this master's degree has trained many lawyers practicing in France and abroad.

A diverse and professional teaching approach

To give students all the tools they need to analyze civil liberties law, the program combines theoretical, critical, and historical instruction with practical training in a given field. Particular emphasis is placed on subjects related to contemporary issues (immigration law and litigation, asylum law, climate change and climate justice law, criminal law and prison law, personal data protection law, gender law, juvenile criminal law, humanitarian law, comparative law, constitutional justice, etc.), which are illuminated by historical and theoretical contextualization.

Clinical and practical training

The course was designed to prepare students to provide specialized legal expertise on specific cases concerning human rights.
These courses will be supplemented by the possible participation of students in the Faculty of Law's legal clinic, which will offer them the opportunity to work on real cases. This work will be carried out in contact with professionals involved in the protection of human rights. Students participating in the clinic will be selected. As part of the Master's program in Human Rights and History of Human Rights, the clinical activity will be credited in M1 and exempt from an internship in M2.

In Master 1, students also have the option of completing a supervised internship, which is credited towards their degree, or, where applicable, a research thesis. In Master 2, they can choose between clinical work, an internship accompanied by a themed report, or writing a research thesis (where applicable, with an internship in a research laboratory).
Selected students will also be able to participate in mock trials before the European Court of Human Rights (Cassin competition) or Priority Preliminary Rulings on Constitutionality organized by the Constitutional Council (Vedel competition).

Diversified assessment methods

Students will be assessed either through continuous assessment in seminars or through final exams. Certain subjects will be assessed jointly in a single oral exam, and students will also benefit from a grand oral de libertés (grand oral on freedoms), which will also promote a cross-disciplinary approach to human rights.
The student assessment methods also enable them to prepare for several competitive examinations, such as the entrance exam for the Regional Professional Training Center for Lawyers (eligibility: case study, summary note; admission: oral exam on the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms), the competitive exam for admission to the National School for the Judiciary (in particular, the ability to analyze and summarize a situation or case, role-playing, ability to apply the law), the police officer competitive examination (essay, practical case), the prison service director competitive examination, jobs as legal assistants or litigation assistants, etc.
Professional development modules can also enhance an application to an NGO.

A stimulating scientific environment

Backed by the laboratories of the Grenoble Faculty of Law (CRJ, CESICE, and CERDAP2), the Master's degree in Law and Human Rights offers a gradual introduction to research through research workshops and a general group seminar with a different theme each year (e.g., states of emergency, prison conditions, law and science fiction, etc.)  and the writing of a research thesis (which can lead to further studies in a doctoral program in law).
Students also benefit from advice from professionals who act as teachers or lecturers (specialized lawyers, association leaders, etc.).

The master's program also organizes conferences with human rights specialists, in particular the master's program's opening conference and conferences with practitioners. Thus, in 2020-2021, a conference was organized on the fate of French women and children in camps in Syrian Kurdistan with Sébastien Touzé, Marie Dosé, Nabil Boudi, and Matthieu Birker from the European Commission of Human Rights office of the Council of Europe. In 2021-2022, the back-to-school conference welcomed François St Bonnet for a lecture on states of emergency, yesterday and today – the theme of the collective seminar. In January 2022, a conference with Véronique Champeil-Desplats was devoted to the general theory of rights and freedoms. In 2022-2023, the back-to-school conference welcomed Dominique Simonnot, the Comptroller General of Places of Deprivation of Liberty, and in December 2022, the Master's program co-organized with ADA and ADATE a conference on asylum lawIn 2023-2024, the back-to-school conference welcomed Mathilde Philip-Gay to discuss her book Can Putin Be Judged?

The Master's program also regularly attends conferences organized by Master's program instructors, such as, in November 2022, Owner, by what right? or What necessity does to law or Teaching human rights in law schools in November 2023 or at certain seminars (Can societal issues be controlled? The example of bioethics in November 2023).

STEEN Graduate School: an innovative and interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research initiation

The Master's degree in Civil Liberties participates in a Graduate school (GS@UGA), the STEEN thematic program ("Societies in economic, ecological, and digital transition"), which brings together five master's programs in the humanities and social sciences at UGA. Since 2021/2022, two to four Master's 1 students, half of whom are international students, have been selected to participate in this thematic research program on ecological, economic, and digital transitions with an interdisciplinary, innovative, and international approach.
In practical terms, the students selected will be required to participate for two years (M1 and M2), each year, in an integration event in September, a Winter school in October, a Summer school in May/June, a themed evening at the theater, project workshops, and the writing of a group research paper. They will be exempt from one semester-long course each year (24 hours, 6 ECTS).
This thematic program is linked to a scholarship program for incoming and outgoing mobility, in particular for international students, as well as laboratory internships.
Enrollment in the Graduate School provides access to doctoral contracts on specific topics to fund theses related to thematic programs, promoting an interdisciplinary approach.

International and European mobility & agreements

The first year of the Master's degree in Human Rights and History of Human Rights can be completed at a foreign university that is a partner of the Faculty of Law (upon selection during the third year of the Bachelor's degree in Law in Grenoble).

Course syllabus and teaching team