In the year 2000 the School of Law of the University of Brasilia (UnB, Brazil) was invited by the Brazilian Institute for Military and Humanitarian Law (IBDMH, Brazil) to establish a joint diploma course on International Law of Armed Conflict (ILAC) for military prosecutors. The idea was matured during the last two years and with the perspective of a wide-ranging agreement between the University of Brasilia and the Ruhr-University Bochum (RUB, Germany), a strong partnership for this enterprise has been found. This association combines the existing skills of the UnB in International Human Rights Law with the expertise of the RUB’s Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (IFHV) in the realm of International Humanitarian Law.

The course is offered in Brasilia, to a mixed public of military officers, military prosecutors and military judges as well as civil servants of the legal advisor’s office of the Ministry of Defence. The course is running for the second year.

Reasons to establish the programme:

• the need of strengthening Brazilian presence in international mandates of peacekeeping, peace-enforcement and peace-building
• the engagement of Brazilian military forces in humanitarian competence as a means to strengthen democracy
• the dissemination of international norms applicable to armed conflict as a condition for their domestic implementation

The Diploma Course:

• Diploma: What it is?
  The programme is run by the UnB in co-operation with the RUB/IFHV. It is structured as a two-term diploma course in International Law of Armed Conflict. Despite the fact that it is a training programme in law, it is nevertheless aimed at a mixed public. This implies a broader approach of the legal discipline, with some interdisciplinary elements and with the need of also explaining general legal concepts which are not of a common understanding of the students. Since students are expected to be in normal professional activity during the course, duration and timetable will have to be adapted to this circumstance. Diploma courses are postgraduate intensive taught-programmes (eventually with some research elements), aimed at training junior lecturers or instructors for specific higher education contents. Within the UnB they are regulated by resolution of the Chamber for Research and Post-graduation (CPP) and have to show an overall duration of at least 360 class-hours. These 360 class-hours are not necessarily to be seminars, but may also be presentations, discussions and practical activities, including effective supervision work of research. Since the aim of the course is to prepare junior lecturers and instructors, the lecturing programme has to include two units in methodology studies: one in the methodology of research and another in the methodology of teaching. In order to rationally fulfil all these requirements and to cover the most important issues for a first training in ILAC, 14 seminars and other activities have been devised for the first term of the course, with a total of 248 hours. During the second term, the remaining 112 hours will be offered to the students in form of supervision work, during the writing of their research papers.
  
  
• The Lectures
  The lectures are to be given in the evenings in sessions of two hours each day (from 19:00 to 20:50 and from 21:10 to 23:00), from Monday to Friday. This means that during the first term, at most 20 hours per week will be offered. For better performance of lecturers and students, these 20 hours can be divided into two different programme-modules or seminars, as lecturing units, meaning that each week at most two programme-modules can be simultaneously lectured. The offered programme-modules have the duration of 8 to 20 hours each. Some modules will be taught in one week and others in two weeks.
  
  
• Responsibility
  The seminars are taught by lecturing staff of both universities and exceptionally by third partners, who joined the programme, such as Brazilian Institute for Military and Humanitarian Law (IBDMH), the Brazilian military prosecutions office and the ICRC, through its representation in Brasilia.
  
  
• Presentation Week
  In order to allow other more up-to-date issues to be discussed through the participation of well-known international experts, a 'presentation week' has been included in the first term, with a total of 12 hours (4 hours per day), being thought as a greater event for the public in general.
  
  
• Research and Supervision
  The bulk of the research work is to be done by the students during the second term, with the supervision of the teaching staff. By the end of the programme, students are expected to deliver a research paper with at most 15,000 words. Supervision of research by IFHV-staff will have to be done by e-learning. The UnB-staff will be available in loco. A total of 112 supervision hours have to be offered during the second term. Part of it can be done by meetings of all students with lecturing staff members and another part through individualised meetings arranged between the supervisor and the student.
  
  
• Assessment
  The evaluation of the students’ performance will be done in two steps. First, as to the lecturing units, written examination will be held in the first week of June, closing the first term. In the first day the student will be given a complex problem to solve (involving issues of more than one lecturing unit) and in the following days specific questions will have to be answered in each lecturing unit. The second step consists of the assessment of the research work, to be done by at least two lecturing staff-members, one of each partner. The final grade will be established by the average between the written examinations and the research work.
  
  
• Working Languages
  Since the proposed diploma course is conceived as a postgraduate programme with international profile, English will be used as common working language. Consequently students will have to show good skills in EFL, which must be considered as an important criterion for admission. Part of the lecturing units may be offered in Portuguese, mainly where Brazilian lecturers are responsible for classes and/or supervision.
  
  
• Award of the Diploma
  Those students who achieve a minimum grade of 70% in the overall assessment of their output in the course will be awarded a postgraduate diploma in the level of “especialization”. The diploma will be awarded by the UnB exclusively, since a similar degree does not exist in German higher education. Though it will be stated in the diploma that the programme has been executed through co-operation between the UnB and the RUB.