The Centre for Human Rights at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, is working towards human rights education in Africa. One of its main programmes is the LLM (Human Rights & Democratisation in Africa), for which it received the UNESCO Award for Human Rights Education in 2006.The LLM is a unique programme to which 30 young men and women from African countries with excellent law degrees and experience in the field of human rights are admitted each year. During an intensive one-year course, they are taught by eminent lecturers in the field of human rights and gain invaluable practical exposure. The programme is presented in collaboration with eight other law faculties in Africa.

Having started in 2000, the programme celebrated 10 years of of its existence in 2009. To mark this ocassion, a special graduation ceremony will take place on 10 December 2009, preceded by a conference of alumni.

One of the components of the programme is an on-site research visit to selected countries, in which issues of human rights and democratisation are studied. Over the last 10 years, these visits have been to South Sudan, Kenya, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somaliland.

Countries represented on the LLM (Human Rights & Democratisation) Programme: