This project is an initiative by the International Women's Rights Project, an independent NGO based for a decade at the University of Victoria.

Problem

Legal education for the laws of Canada and the law reform process are paramount. But we need to also be teaching our youth about the role that international law is increasingly playing in our global world. We have no real mechanisms for global governance, fiscally or otherwise. The youth of today are going to be the leaders and participants and global citizens of tomorrow who will make those decisions, hopefully not just carrying out the ones that we make today.

Solution

The objectives are simple: Research and develop educational material in youth friendly formats (print and web based with links to YouTube, Facebook and Podcasts) that will educate them about issues of international law and the rule of law and our obligations as Canadian citizens in a global world to implement international law at home and abroad. By the end of this project we will have: • The completed study guide for BC high schools • Have held focus groups with our advisory committee and high school youth • Incorporated the recommendations from above committees into the final product • A completed website • A study guide adaptable to high schools that will be branded as a BC product – International Women's Right's Project; Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria; The BC Teacher’s Federation; West Coast Leaf; and The BC Law Foundation.

Example

All the support required comes from the partners involved in the project. With the membership base of the BC Teacher's Federation, there is a guarantee that once the content is approved by the BC Teacher's Federation executive, having been vetted by the focus groups, the material will be used in BC schools. Making sure that the materials are also web based will meet a greater national need since these educational resources are not available.

Marketplace

As far as we can ascertain, no one else is doing this educational work in BC high schools. There are some websites like Wikipedia that might provide some basic international legal information, but nothing that has been specifically written for the curricula and lesson plans for BC high schools. The Justice Education Society of BC does international work, but not international legal education in high schools. The Ontario Justice Education Network (OJEN), in part funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario does legal education but not international legal education. We are working in partnership with OJEN to cover British Columbia and Ontario.