Activities
International Focus Programme (IFP)
Health Law – First year of implementation Health Law was elected as the topic for the International Focus Programme for the period 2010–2013 at the International Council Meeting (ICM) in Malta, spring 2010. This article describes the first year of implementation.
The IFP is a programme that collects and guides the efforts of the whole ELSA Network in order for the members to reach Sofia Kallio common goals and academic results within Director for International one hot legal topic. The goal for the first Focus Programme ELSA International 10/11 year of implementation of the new topic, Health Law, which was selected at the ICM Malta, in April 2010, was to raise awareness of the topic within the Network, to establish contacts within the field of law and to organize some major international projects. ELSA International believes that the goals have been reached for various reasons: most of the ELSA countries have organized IFP events; the implementation has covered even STEP – which has not proven to be simple with previous IFP topics; and the topic has brought new cooperations with different organizations. IFP Events The IFP Opening Conference took place in Prague, Czech Republic between February 22 and 27 2011 with the tremendous effort of Martina Kalapáčová as the Head of Organizing Committee and Jiří Mačát as the Responsible for the Academic Programme. This programme was compiled with the help of JUDr. Ondřej Dostál, Ph.D., LL.M., himself a former ELSA member. The programme consisted of lectures from international and Czech experts on health law, such as Egle Granziera from the World Health Organization (WHO), André den Exter from the Erasmus Observa14
tory on Health Law and Iain Byrne from Interights. The lectures covered various issues related to Health Law, since the aim was to introduce the topic broadly as an opening event. Nevertheless, the first international conference on the new IFP topic was actually held already a week earlier in Hamburg, Germany, on Reproductive Rights with the focus on Bioethics. The topic of the event shows the large scope of Health Law as a topic: in addition to the legal aspects, there are also many ethical, cultural and human rights issues that, nevertheless, need to be decided upon through a legislative process. Similarly with regard to the broad scope of the topic, the international conference “Euthanasia – EU perspective” (9th – 14th March 2011) in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be highlighted. It was the first international event of the ELSA Group in the country, and it found its source of inspiration in the IFP topic. STEP traineeships A major opportunity for ELSA members was the STEP traineeship at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva which took place in summer 2011. The task of the STEP trainee was to support the work of the Health and Human Rights team, for example, by contributing to various documents, preparing them for publication and assisting in the facilitation of training workshops. In addition to the traineeship at WHO, the STEP officers saw the new topic as an inspiration for new types of cooperation in their countries. Their effort has resulted in seven traineeships so far.
ELSA Annual Report