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OUR RESEARCH PROJECTS
new: uniform civil code project
In a recent case resolving a dispute over India’s Hindu Marriage Act (1955), the Delhi High Court (HC) emphasized the need for a uniform set of personal laws that are applied to all citizens equally, irrespective of religion – otherwise known as a Uniform Civil Code (UCC). This judgement reignited a long-standing, historic debate about the relationship between religion and law in the world’s largest democracy. In an increasingly progressive Indian society, where the traditional social barriers drawn along religious and caste-based lines appear to be slowly cracking and falling, the Delhi HC reiterated the need to evaluate a proposal for a UCC designed specifically for contemporary India. This project aims to do just that. Recruiting a team of researchers to analyse the potential impact of a Uniform Civil Code in the world’s largest democracy, this project will study and address several major questions surrounding the UCC. The ultimate aim and hope is to forward the debate on a highly political and contentious issue in modern India that has stood at deadlock since the nation’s independence.
Applications are open now and close September 10th at 11:59 PM.
summer programme
This project aimed at providing research and documents to an NGO, Prospects Foundation, working education in Kenya. Kenya has developed legislations and frameworks to protect the right to education and human rights law. But the state still faces difficulties when implementing this. This is especially prominent in places like the Kibera slums where 250,000 people reside in an area of only 2.5 kilometres. It is estimated that more than 78% of children living in the Kibera slums do not receive formal education. Therefore, the Kenyan government has failed to protect their education rights. Other issues within the Kenyan education realm are: high ratio of teacher to pupils, poor teacher remuneration, poor quality of education in public school, high drop-out and repetition rates, inadequate and uncoordinated funding with weak governance and financial management, geographical disparities, limited availability to teaching and learning material and limited community participation.
Additionally, around 35.5% of Kenya’s population is living below the poverty line (this percentage is suspected to have increased). With a fair amount of the population living in poverty the state decided to make primary and secondary education; but some schools still require fees. This also rids student’s of their education rights. On the basis of these problems, the researchers produced a petition, a report with future programmes for the NGO Prospects Foundation, and an information e-handbook to be handed to teachers, parents, and students.
DATA PROTECTION PROJECT
This project focuses on issues regarding data collection and surveillance. With the increased use of technology by all of society, there is an increasing concern on the collection of data and the surveillance of citizens and the contingent legitimacy of such practices. This is evident with the creation of the General Data Protection Regulation in 2016 and its implementation in national law through the Data Protection Act 2018. The researchers all wrote an article on a particular issue to showcase some of the arising problems pertaining to data protection.
MOSTAR ELECTION PROJECT
This project centers around the arrangement of local public elections in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Elections have not been held in 12 years in the city as a result of the country’s incapacity to create a proper power-sharing mechanism to maintain in the city that is ethnically divided between Croats and Muslim Bosniaks. A team of researchers put together a report engaging with local and international law to analyse the underlying issues behind the absence of elections.
WILDLIFE PROTECTION PROJECT
This project revolves around the protection of wildlife in Tanzania and Kenya. Lawyers without Borders is currently running a Wildlife Crime Programme in both countries for which this research team had to produce two card games for key legal stakeholders to provide training and accessible information regarding species identification, categorisation, and the concomitant protection statutes they hold. The researchers studied the multiple protective legal frameworks for wildlife species in both countries.
The Wildlife Crime Programme run by LWOB aims to train key legal actors in Kenya and Tanzania to enhance prosecutorial and judicial capacity in countering wildlife trafficking. This goal is achieved through trial advocacy and introducing international wildlife crime laws to raise awareness about wildlife trafficking and crime. So far, the programme trained 222 Kenyan and Tanzanians prosecutors, private attorneys, magistrates and judges.
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