Council of Europe: HELP online course on Business and Human Rights in Ireland

HELP is the main educational platform of the Council of Europe for legal professionals. Its aim is to train judges, lawyers and prosecutors, but also other professionals, such as civil society, on European human rights standards.

The HELP course on Business and Human Rights has been adapted to reflect the Irish legal system and practice is now available publically as a self-learning course on the HELP platform. The course can be accessed by clicking on the hyperlink under the Business and Human Rights course on the home page of the HELP platform.

The adapted course consists of seven modules and includes a specific section on the national implementation of United Nations Guiding Principles in Ireland. The aims of the course are to provide participants with a clear understanding of international business and human rights concepts and to enable users to identify tools and strategies to advance the respect for human rights within a company. The course was supported by the Law Society of Ireland’s European Union and International Affairs Committee.

It takes some six online hours to complete and has the following modules:

1)     Introduction

2)     Pillar One: the State Duty to Protect

3)     Pillar Two: the Corporate Responsibility to Respect

4)     Pillar Three: an Effective Remedy

5)     Extraterritoriality

At the end of this course, participants will:

• Have a clear understanding of international business and human rights concepts.
• Identify three pillars of UN guiding principles.
• Identify human rights issues that arise in connection with business operations.
• Understand the concept of the Responsibility to Respect Human Rights.
• Become familiar with access to remedy in the context of business and human rights.
• Understand the corporate responsibility to respect human rights from inside companies.
• Identify tools and strategies to advance the respect for human rights within a company.

There are also a number of other HELP courses on human rights topics (focusing on European standards combining both the Council of Europe and EU laws and case law) accessible for free on the HELP platform. You can view the full catalogue of courses here.