Mission

The Clinic is a university-based activity led by law student teams under the direct supervision of law professors. It aims to offer support, legal research and drafting work to institutions, lawyers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and victims of human rights violations in the context of files or legal initiatives pertaining to international criminal, humanitarian and human rights law.

The International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic allows students attending Laval University to participate in real files in the areas of international law concerned. The work can be done from Laval University in collaboration with the attorneys on file- wherever they are based- by maintaining regular contact and by holding meetings as needed. This experience can be accompanied by a stay abroad, when circumstances warrant. The Clinic’s contribution may also take the form of a student internship with the attorney on file, before the court hearing the case or in the country where the human rights institution conducts its project, as applicable. These various options are decided according to the attorney’s or institution’s needs, selected students’ availability and available funding.

Director

Me Fannie Lafontaine is currently assistant professor at University Laval’s Law Faculty. Her fields of teaching and research include international criminal law, international humanitarian law and international human rights law. She is also interested in canadian criminal law and human rights law. She graduated from National University of Ireland Galway (Ph.D., 2011), University of Cambridge (LL.M., 2004) and Laval University (LL.B., 1999). She is a member of the Quebec Bar and a member of the Board of Directors of Lawyers Without Borders Canada, of the Canadian Council for International Law and of the editorial committee for the Journal of International Criminal Justice. After working for McCarthy Tétrault LLP as a litigation lawyer, she became a law clerk to the Honorable Louise Arbour, Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2004, while working for a NGO human rights group in Brazil, she was hired as the legal assistant specialist in human rights law for the president of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, Mr. Antonio Cassese. Shortly thereafter, she integrated the UN Executive Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (2005). For more information about Me Lafontaine, please visit her personal profile.

Follow her on twitter : http://twitter.com/@flafontaine

History

Founded in the fall of 2008, the « International Criminal Law Project » evolved into the International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic in 2009. Since its creation, the project has allowed numerous law students at both graduate and law degree levels to accomplish a variety of legal research work. The students involved with the Clinic have worked mainly in collaboration with defence lawyers representing persons accused of genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity, as well as in the context of international human rights law files, or with Chambers of international criminal tribunals.

The Clinic is developing rapidly and additional collaboration is being organized with a number of international institutions and specialized international criminal and human rights lawyers. In 2010, a new optional course called “International Criminal and Humanitarian Law Clinic” has been added to the possible curriculum for students at Laval University’s Law Faculty. This course provides students with institutional university framework, close academic supervision and practical work with lawyers or institutions involved with the Clinic. Through the course, students get regular full course credits for their otherwise voluntary work within the Clinic’s projects.

Until today, the Clinic’s projects mainly involved files being heard before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the International Criminal Court (ICC), as well as Canadian courts. They also involved work with human rights organisations. The legal research work accomplished by participating students has been done either on a voluntary basis or on a paid basis, but most often has been the object of work for which students receive regular full course credits.