NUFFIC awards Van Vollenhoven Institute grant to train Indonesian law lecturers in socio-legal approaches
NUFFIC’s Orange Knowledge programme, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, awarded a grant to the proposal of Jacqueline Vel, Adriaan Bedner and Leiden alumnus Fachrizal Afandi just before the Christmas holidays.
Why socio-legal?
Law faculties in Indonesia are showing an increasing interest in a social-legal approach to the study, teaching and application of law because the insights it generates are key to protecting the rule of law in the country. The authoritarian tendencies currently on the rise in Indonesia make this a matter of immediate urgency. Jurists play a central role in such protection, but their exclusive focus on doctrinal knowledge of the law does not equip them well for this task. They also need to understand how law operates in practice, how it is embedded institutionally and what the main threats to the institutional foundations of the rule of law are – in short, the very issues socio-legal studies focus on. Socio-legal studies have gained a place in curricula in law schools all over Indonesia, but many lecturers are struggling with how to teach them.
Training-of-Trainers
The training course aims to strengthen socio-legal teaching throughout Indonesia, with a key role for the Center of Socio-Legal Studies of Brawijaya University in collaboration with the Indonesian Association of Socio-Legal Studies. Rather than trying to build the capacity of a small, isolated group of professionals, the course will be a 'training of trainers', aiming to create a pool of senior professionals who can build capacities of others in teaching the socio-legal approach. The primary target group are lecturers teaching socio-legal courses and law lecturers interested in integrating such an approach into their doctrinal courses. The TMT period is 1 April 2022- 31 March 2023, with a total grant awarded of 75,000 euros.
Part of series
This training of trainers builds on experiences, networks and materials developed in the institutional collaboration project 'Strengthening Legal Education in Eastern Indonesia (SLEEI)' which will be finalised in June 2022. There will be an international seminar in Leiden in May to discuss experiences and approaches in integrating socio-legal approaches in law school curricula under adverse conditions as in countries in the South and under authoritarian rule.