Direct participation: Law school clinics and international humanitarian law

Abstract

Law school clinics focused on international humanitarian law (IHL) enable students to participate directly in the development and application of IHL through concrete "real world" work - from training to research and fact-finding, litigation to high-level advocacy, and many spaces in between. These opportunities do far more than just contribute to these students' development as effective, reflective lawyers, certainly a key goal of any clinical environment. Clinical IHL work also matches clinical pedagogy with cutting-edge issues in armed conflict to deepen students' law school experiences and enables them to engage in the IHL goals of promotion, implementation and enforcement.