On 15-17 December the Kosovo Property Claims Commission (KPCC) held its final session and the work on resolving conflict-related property claims will soon be finalized. Among the lawyers preparing the cases and attending the session were three NORDEM secondees.
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Truong Thi Thuy Dung is one of 61 students graduated from the Master Programme in Human Rights Law at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi. The Master programme was established in 2010, as the first of its kind in Vietnam, and is supported by the Vietnam Programme at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR).

NORDEM has sent one long term observer to The Carter Center's mission in support to the democratic transition in Myanmar.
This is the first time NORDEM sends experts to Myanmar.
In 2013-2014, the Vietnam Programme supported a legal awareness project in Hue City in central Vietnam.
Students from the Law Faculty at Hue University have visited prisons and communities to raise legal awareness.

Justice Through Equality: Building Religious Knowledge for Legal Reform in Muslim Family Laws is now available in Arabic and in French.
This report sums up lessons learned from the expert discussions and written contributions in the nine years the Oslo Coalition project has run, and places some of the key arguments into an editorial synthesis. It is intended for policy-makers, stakeholders and advocates of reform who are developing knowledge-based arguments for legal reform.

OSCE/ODIHR is observing the parliamentary election in Uzbekistan to be held on 21 December. NORDEM has sent one long-term observer to this mission.

OSCE/ODIHR is observing the parliamentary election in Moldova to be held on 30 November. NORDEM has sent two long term and four short term observers to this mission.
Tunisian citizens voted in a genuine and competitive election on Nov. 23, the country's first presidential elections under the new constitution, states The Carter Center in their Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions after the first round of the presidential elections.
For the first time since independence, Tunisians were offered the opportunity to choose among a diverse group of presidential candidates in a genuine election. The Nov. 23 presidential polls, the second of two elections intended to consolidate Tunisia’s democratic transition, were administered in a professional and neutral manner. As such, Tunisia could serve as a model for other countries in the region struggling to establish democratic institutions.
The Carter Center will stay on to observe the secound round of the elections.

A delegation headed by NCHR director Inga Bostad visited China from 20-24 October to meet with university partners to discuss future cooperation. The delegation met with several of the China Programme key partners such as the Renmin University Law School.

A human rights training for civil servants in the Indonesian province of Central Kalimantan was held on October 21, in cooperation with the Institute for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

A five-day program consisting of a human rights training component, introduction to the new village law, and discussion on the impacts of palm oil production in the sub-district, was carried out in Paju Epat subdistrict 22-26 September 2014.

A total of 35 NORDEM Election Observers have been sent to the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission in Ukraine.

On 15 October 2014, the Director of the Vietnam Programme at the NCHR, Gisle Kvanvig, presented his paper “ASEAN, sovereignty and human rights” at the Third International Conference on Human Rights and Peace & Conflict in Southeast Asia.
This report addresses a major challenge in processes of political transition from open conflict to a system of democratic stability in ethnically divided societies.
The dilemma is how a democratic principle of representation that reflects group-based identities can contribute to overcoming group-based conflict dynamics.
This is where electoral quotas come into the picture: What are the effects of introducing quotas? Will they contribute to democratic stability or rather preserve and strengthen the cleavages that led to open conflict in the first place?

OSCE/ODIHR is observing the general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will be held on 12 October. NORDEM has sent six short term observers to this mission.

The Human Rights in Theory and Practice MA programme at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights (NCHR) has this semester received two students under the new agreement between Renmin University Law School in China and Oslo University Law School.

The Oslo Coalition on Freedom of Religion or Belief held its third workshop on the freedom of religion and expression in the Islamic tradition in Istanbul, August 22-24, 2014.

The EU has deployed its Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) to observe the upcoming elections in Tunisia. NORDEM contributes with one long term and one short term observer. Both French speaking, with extensive experience from the region.

NORDEM deploys one long-term and one short-term observer to the EU Election Observation Mission in relation to the general elections in Mozambique on 15 October.

Gisle Kvanvig of the Vietnam Programme and Knut D. Asplund of the Indonesia Programme at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights presented their programme’s cooperation with the Vietnam People's Police Force and the Armed Forces of Indonesia (TNI) respectively at the conference “Human rights and the security sector in the Asia Pacific” in Bangkok from September 15 to 17, 2014.

For the seventh consecutive year the Indonesia Programme at the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights in Cooperation with FRR Law Office Jakarta have run a training course in the law of armed conflict and human rights for the Indonesian Army’s Special Forces, Kopassus from September 8 to 11. This time the training took place in the in quarters of Group 3 of Kopassus in Cijantung in the outskirts of Jakarta. Group 3 is a specially selected unit specialising in anti-terror, unconventional warfare and intelligence.
On 11 September 2014, Ms. Kathinka Fürst, Research Fellow at the Netherlands China Law Centre, University of Amsterdam was invited to present her research on the role of environmental public interest litigation in fighting China’s pollution problems.
From 14-22 August a seminar on human rights law teaching at Chinese universities, organized by the China Programme in cooperation with China University of Political Science and Law, was held in Beijing for 45 Chinese law teachers.

- After more than 16 years of “reformasi,” the framework of transitional justice has not yet been able to function properly as an integral approach in settling past human rights abuses in Indonesia, says Indria Fernida, graduate from NCHR's Master Program in Human Rights.
The Vietnam Programme offers two Vietnamese students accepted into the Master of Philosophy in the Theory and Practice of Human Rights a monthly stipend for the duration of the course.