Legal clinic

Every year, the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp organizes a Sustainable Development and Global Justice legal clinic as part of the Master of Laws Programme. The clinic is coordinated by Professor Tomaso Ferrando and lasts for the whole second semester of Year 1. Students choosing dissertation related to the Sustainable Development and Global Justice module are automatically enrolled in the clinic.

The aim of the clinic is to bring students as close as possible to concrete legal cases and to the reality of law in the context of human rights, environmental and global justice challenges. Students are divided into small groups, supported by a mentor from within the Law and Development Research Group, and put in direct contact with a ‘client’ or ‘partner’ of the clinic. Along the years, ‘clients/partners’ have been local communities, international and national NGOs, human rights law firms, United Nations treaty bodies and other actors who are promoting human and environmental rights, or asking for legal redress. 

During the semester, students learn how to translate the theory of law into concrete cases, how to communicate about law and legal instances, how to work in group and how to draft legal documents that differ from the usual essays: legal analysis, human rights based assessments, policy briefs, submissions to the United Nations human rights bodies and legal strategies are among the outputs that have been realized in the course of the last years and that represent the backbone of international lawyering.

At the end of the semester, students are also given the opportunity to present their work to the ‘client/partners’ and other relevant stakeholders, and often there is the possibility of making the work public and therefore obtain international visibility beyond the module.

For academic year. 2022/2023, the legal clinic will rely on the support of Maha Abdallah, Arinç Onat Kiliç and Michael Marcondes Smith.

2024-2025 projects

Adjudicating the Right to Food

​The report, realized in collaboration with and upon request of the FAO Right to Food Team, presents a first of its kind analysis of thirty judicial decisions at regional and national levels that interpret and operationalize the right to food. It offers an overview of when and how the right to food has been interpreted and enforced courts, and reflects on ways to strengthen the research and the advocacy work. Despite the formal recognition under Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Article 11 of the International Convention on Economic Social and Cultural Rights as a key component of the right to adequate standard of living, the justiciability of right to food has received limited attentions by courts, which poses practical and implementation theoretical issues concerns. However, this trend is not set in stone and needs to be better understood

Lesotho Highlands Water Project: Report on Legal Strategy

The research that led to this report was conducted by students under the supervision of Tankiso Motipi, with Tomaso Ferrando as course coordinator. The partner, Seinoli Legal Centre, is established in Lesotho, where the communities are suffering from a large dam construction project, which is now in its second phase. The purpose of the series of dams is to supply water to the densely populated but naturally dry area of Gauteng in South Africa . Many human rights abuses have been documented, and various NGOs have worked on the matter. This report is innovative thanks to its focus on corporate rather than state actors. The students were able to do a large amount of mapping work, and Seinoli Legal Centre encountered a new dimension to fight injustice. After the mapping excercise, the report presents an analysis of three European multinational companies – EDF (France), Tractebel (Belgium), and WeBuild (Italy), and considers litigation possibilities. This work feeds into the PhD research of Tankiso Motipi a the University of Antwerp.

2022-2023 projects

Plastic waste trade and accountability of EU Member States

• Assisting ClientEarth to map the legal frameworks in the EU with a view to elaborate a legal strategy to hold Member States accountable for the negative impacts of (illegally) trading in waste with non-EU countries.

Corporate accountability in the context of contemporary apartheid 

• Working with Al-Haq in mapping possible accountability mechanisms to redress the private sector’s responsibility in entrenching Israel’s settler colonialism and apartheid in Palestine that exacerbates violations of human rights and international law.

The Right to Social Security in South Africa: A Close Look to Child Support and Disability Allowances, Considering Race and Gender

• Collaboration with Amnesty International UK to examine the social security framework of South Africa from the perspective of a human rights to social security with a strong focus on intersectionality of gender and race.

2021-2022 projects

Evaluating Non-financial Reporting on Plastic Packaging 

• Students assisted ClientEarth to structure an assessment framework based on non-financial reporting obligations of companies in the EU relating to plastic packaging

Legal Claims Against Land Grabbing and Mining Activities in Amazon

• Support the legal claims put forward by indigenous, fishing and artisanal communities in the Amazon bring against land grabbing and mining activities

Protection of the Rights of Traditional Peoples and Traditional Commercial Activities

• Assisting, through legal research, a civil society organization in the production of an amicus curiae to the higher administrative court concerning the human rights standards of the protection of the rights of traditional peoples and traditional commercial activities in Colombia.

2020-2021 projects

Support to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food

• Supporting the special rapporteur, Professor Michael Fakhri, in the analysis of the state of the right to food in the European Union. Realization of a report and recommendations.

Legal strategy Challenging Micro-plastic Production

• Collaboration with ClientEarth in the elaboration of an international legal strategy aimed at challenging the expansion of micro-plastic production in the port of Antwerp, notably in the case of INEOS’ plans for a new plant (Project One). Realization of an overarching legal assessment of state of the art and jurisprudence at international and European level.

Legal assessment of land acquiring for wind farms 

• Support to INDEPAZ in the assessment of the possible legal avenues to hold to account EU companies acquiring land for the construction of wind farms in the region of Guajira, Colombia. Realization of a report with indication of main international legal constraints, jurisprudential precedents and possible legal interventions.

The legal clinic partners for this module are IMEC and Deutsche Seemannsmission in the port of Antwerp. Below you can find more information about what these legal clinics entail.

IMEC

Our legal clinic partner for the cluster on Commercial Transactions and Disputes is imec. Within this clinic, the students will engage in the legal challenges involved in international contracts for procuring Research and Development (R&D) tools for the semiconductor industry. 

The cross-border purchase of specialised equipment can involve conflicting contractual terms, as well as sudden tariff increases and geopolitical tensions, which create legal uncertainty. Students analyse which terms govern, who bears transport and customs risks, and whether the buyer can recover costs or claim damages for late delivery. They will also consider how liability limitations affect remedies and propose strategies to avoid similar disputes in the future.

Throughout the clinic, the students also focus on negotiating liability clauses for high-value, high-risk equipment in a sensitive environment. Students will draft a balanced clause that protects the buyer’s interests while respecting the supplier’s concerns about unlimited liability and intellectual property. They will address issues such as liability caps, shared responsibility, and insurance alignment.

Through these cases, students will learn to navigate complex international transactions, manage legal risks, and propose practical solutions aligned with industry realities. 

Deutsche Seemannsmission

This legal clinic brings students into direct contact with the legal and social realities of maritime labour. Under the supervision of Viola Heutger (University of Antwerp), students work in collaboration with Marc Schippers of the Deutsche Seemannsmission, a maritime welfare organisation supporting seafarers in international ports. The clinic focuses on the protection of seafarers’ rights within the framework of the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006 (MLC, 2006), and related international and European legal instruments.

Through legal research and case-based analysis, students examine issues such as employment contracts, wage claims, access to shore leave, and the legal challenges arising from abandoned vessels or insolvency situations. The collaboration with a practice partner enables students to explore how legal norms operate in real-life contexts and how legal strategies can improve access to justice for maritime workers.

A field visit to the Antwerp Harbour Hotel, the port of Antwerp Bruges and engagement with maritime professionals provide insight into the everyday challenges faced by seafarers, including isolation, contractual insecurity, and cross-border legal complexity. The project strengthens students’ professional skills while contributing to the broader discussion on fair working conditions and dignity at sea.

The outcomes of the clinic include practice-oriented legal analyses and recommendations that support maritime welfare organisations in their advocacy and advisory work, while also fostering international and interdisciplinary perspectives on maritime labour law.