This year students of the Faculty of Law Maksim Vasiliyev and Ekaterina Sannikova took an internship. Maxim Vasiliyev trained at the University of Karl and Franz, Graz – the second largest university in Austria, and Ekaterina Sannikova spent two weeks at the University of Vienna.

2nd year master student Maxim Vasiliev talks about the significance of such an experience: “The topic of my master’s study is related to the activities of transnational corporations and the protection of human rights. At the University of Graz these questions are deeply studied by Professor Gerd Oberleitner, who became my mentor in this field for two weeks. Prof. Oberleitner teaches international law and international human rights law not only at the University of Graz, but also at other universities in Europe and beyond. In addition, I talked a lot with Professor Wolfgang Benedek, who repeatedly gave valuable advice on the problems of my research and even provided me with literature from his personal collection for the entire period of study. It is difficult to overestimate the importance of consultations from such high-level specialists, as well as the opportunity to learn in practice how certain norms of international law are implemented in life”.

As Ekaterina Sannikova notes, the University of Vienna had a very interesting and diverse educational program: students studied the rights of survivors of conflicts, the rights of indigenous peoples and the right to self-determination, identity, equality, differences; the concept of discrimination and other topical issues of international law.

Among other things, in the classroom, master’s student worked in groups, solved cases, debated, watched documentaries, learned to think critically, listened to lectures by professors working in the field of human rights protection.

“Our group consisted of 25 students from all over the world: from Austria, Serbia, USA, Scotland, Ireland, Uganda, Cameroon, Spain, Brazil, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Mexico, etc. This is an incredible mixture of cultures, experiences, points of view and views on the world gave a new understanding of things that seemed to us previously known! We were also given a unique opportunity to work with materials from libraries and electronic resources of the University of Vienna. I got an incredible experience, for which I express my deep gratitude to all the professors, and especially to my coordinator in Vienna, Marianne Grandits”, Ekaterina Sannikova said.

Students express their gratitude to the Department of Labour and International Law of Perm State National Research University for the opportunity and experience gained.

Currently, another graduate student, Anastasia Titova, is undergoing an internship at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Her research is related to the right to education. At the University of Lisbon, Anastasia is supervised by Professor Elena Pereira de Melo.

Note:

The master's program “International Protection of Human Rights” is a unique educational project, the first and only inter-university master's program in human rights in Russia.

The program has been implemented at the Faculty of Law of Perm State National Research University since 2014. This program brings together nine Russian universities and is the first master’s program in the field of human rights protection in Russia, which is supported by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Since the opening of this master’s program, 14 students have completed internships at PSNRU.

Second-year students who speak English are sent for internships with the aim of in-depth preparation of a master’s study on the topic of international protection of human rights.