European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights

The International Crimes and Accountability Program aims to ensure that grave breaches of international law - war crimes, torture and other crimes against humanity - are prosecuted and perpetrators are brought to justice. ECCHR is focusing its work on the following countries and themes:[5]

• War crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated for example in Syria,[6] Sri Lanka, Colombia[7] and Argentina
• Grave human rights violations committed in the course of countering terrorism by the USA,[8] the UK[9] and their allies in Guantánamo,[10] Iraq and Afghanistan as well as through drone strikes[11]
• Grave human rights violations including torture and sexual violence in Yemen,[12] Colombia, Syria and Congo[13]
• Dealing with the crimes of the dictatorships in Argentina and Chile (Colonia Dignidad[14])
• NATO and UN responsibility in Serbia and Afghanistan

ECCHR's Migration program advocates for the fundamental protection and rights of refugees and challenges asylum policies in Europe through strategic case work. Areas of focus include:

• EU's asylum, refugee and migration policies[16]
• Unlawful push-backs at the EU's external borders[17]

The Business and Human Rights program looks at three main areas: transnational corporate activities in authoritarian regimes and conflict zones, working conditions in the global supply chain and business activities that affect economic and social rights. Areas of focus include:[19]

• Cooperation of companies with regimes and conflict parties and their relation to human rights violations (e.g. in Syria,[20] Yemen,[21] Colombia, Argentina)
• Inhumane working conditions in the global supply chain in agro and textile industries (e. g. in Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Qatar[22])
• Access to land and livelihoods (e. g. in Zimbabwe, Peru[23])

In the Institute for Legal Intervention, ECCHR focuses on critical perspectives on law, particularly concerning dynamics of power. By combining legal theory and practice and through exchange with research institutions and universities, but also through collaboration with activists, artists and partners worldwide, ECCHR aims to contribute to political, legal and societal debates regarding unjust power relations and social justice.[25] At the core of this work lies the understanding of law as an expression of societal power relations and thus an instrument of hegemony, but also the recognition of the emancipatory potential of law.

An important part of ECCHR's work is the Critical Legal Training, in which ECCHR regularly trains and educates human rights activists.

ECCHR's Critical Legal Training offers participants a platform for the theory and practice of international human rights law. It aims to develop and further a critical analysis of contemporary issues of law and society.[27] ECCHR claims that since 2008 about 400 human rights lawyers from more than 40 countries have been volunteers or trainees at the organisation.[28]