The University of the Philippines Institute of Human Rights (UP IHR) is proposing a 12-unit Human Rights Law track within the Juris Doctor program to help Philippine law schools produce lawyers equipped not only with legal knowledge but also with the skills, values and professional orientation needed to protect human dignity and advance social justice.
The proposed track seeks to address the uneven and fragmented treatment of human rights in Philippine legal education, where human rights discussions are often embedded in Constitutional Law and compete with subjects focused on the Bar examination.
UP Law Center Institute of Human Rights University Researcher and UP IHR Human Rights and Peace Education Program Head James Gregory A. Villasis said the study behind the proposal found that human rights education is “not only uneven, it is also fragmented.”
“Human rights may appear in different courses or subjects, but students do not always encounter it as a coherent field of law,” Mr. Villasis said during a presentation on the proposed track.
“So they will only treat it as patches of principles, concepts, institutions, and mechanisms,” he added.
The study, titled Institutionalizing Human Rights, the Treatment of Inequality on Policy, Freedom, and Reform, and the Development of a Specialized Jurisdiction, was conducted over eight months, from July 2025 to March 2026.
It used desk research, a systematic literature review, three focus group discussions, stakeholder consultations, expert validation and workshops. The proposed curriculum was presented for validation during a workshop on March 3.
The study examined how human rights education could be systematically incorporated into the JD curriculum under Legal Education Board Memorandum Order No. 24, Series of 2021, while meeting academic, professional and regulatory standards.
It adopted the framework under the 2011 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Education and Training, which calls for education about, through and for human rights.
Mr. Villasis said a 2002–2006 baseline study found that only 23% of 90 law schools surveyed offered a human rights course.
Human rights law was later recognized as a separate subject under LEB Memorandum No. 1, Series of 2011.
However, subsequent mapping studies in 2013 and 2019 continued to identify gaps, including fragmented integration across the curriculum, reliance on traditional Socratic and case methods, limited faculty specialization and inadequate teaching methods and materials.
Under LEB Memorandum No. 24, Series of 2021, human rights was no longer retained as a separate required course. Instead, it was integrated into Constitutional Law as alternative course coverage alongside the Bill of Rights.
“While human rights remained part of the J.D. curriculum, it shifted from being a stand-alone course in 2011 to being integrated into a broader core subject of Constitutional Law in 2021 until now,” Mr. Villasis said.
He said integration is not inherently a problem, but it could result in reduced depth, limited coverage and a lack of coherence when human rights competes with other Constitutional Law topics.
A 2022 UP IHR baseline study also found gaps in human rights coverage, including limited discussion of economic, social and cultural rights and insufficient offerings focused on vulnerable sectors.
The study also identified concerns over teaching materials, faculty expertise and the continuing use of traditional teaching methods.
“The larger issue, therefore, is not simply whether human rights appear somewhere in our curriculum,” Mr. Villasis said.
“The question is whether our law students are being equipped with the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to engage human rights issues in real-world scenarios or practice,” he added.
THREE DIMENSIONS
Under the proposed approach, learning about human rights refers to substantive knowledge of human rights principles, domestic and international laws, treaties, institutions, remedies and accountability mechanisms.
Learning through human rights concerns the way the course is delivered. It calls for teaching methods that reflect participation, equality, respect, inclusion and critical engagement.
Learning for human rights focuses on application. Students should be able to use their knowledge to protect rights, assist clients and communities, advocate for reform and respond to actual human rights problems.
These dimensions are intended to develop three broad outcomes: knowledge, skills and values.
Students should understand legal frameworks and contemporary human rights challenges, apply legal research and advocacy strategies to systemic barriers, and develop a professional identity grounded in ethical practice, social justice and trauma-informed learning.
Kabataan Party-list Representative Renee Louise M. Co said human rights education should also prepare lawyers to recognize rights violations and identify the remedies available to victims.
“When [the law students] step out of the classrooms, the expectation remains: lawyers should serve the people,” Ms. Co said.
She said lawyers are expected to advocate for human rights, women’s and children’s rights, and the interests of underprivileged sectors.
FIVE-COURSE TRACK
The proposed Human Rights Law track consists of five courses equivalent to 12 units.
The first is Foundational Human Rights Law and Social Justice Lawyering, a four-unit course covering the history and principles of human rights, international instruments and institutions, the Philippine human rights framework, and the relationship between international and domestic law.
It also introduces community legal empowerment, policy advocacy, strategic litigation, client engagement and ethical lawyering.
The second is Special Topics in International Human Rights Law, a two-unit course covering refugee and statelessness law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and regional human rights mechanisms.
The third is Contemporary and Emerging Human Rights Issues, which covers issues involving business, technology, artificial intelligence, media, climate change, migration, public health, conflict governance and transitional justice.
The fourth is Human Rights of Vulnerable Groups and Disadvantaged Persons, which focuses on groups facing discrimination, exclusion and barriers to justice. These include LGBTQIA+ individuals, indigenous peoples, poor communities, persons who use drugs, persons deprived of liberty and persons with disabilities.
The course also examines structural inequality and the difficulties faced by marginalized groups in accessing courts, government services, legal representation and other institutions.
The fifth is Human Rights Research and Seminar, a two-unit capstone course requiring students to conduct independent research and present their work in a seminar.
Mr. Villasis said the courses are arranged progressively, moving from foundational knowledge to international and emerging issues, vulnerable sectors and independent research.
The proposed sequence begins in the third year, first term, and is completed by the first term of the fourth year.
Under the basic JD curriculum, students complete 135 units, including 10 units for electives. Students taking the proposed track would complete 137 units, with 12 units allotted to specialized electives.
Mr. Villasis said the proposal does not create an entirely separate degree program. Instead, it provides students who want to specialize in human rights law with a structured academic pathway within the JD program.
The proposal follows the structure of other specialized tracks, including the Sharia Law and Competition Law tracks, which also require 137 units with 12 units for specialized electives.
FROM CLASSROOM TO PRACTICE
The study recommended shifting from exclusive reliance on lectures and Socratic teaching toward experiential learning and performance-based assessment.
It also called for deeper integration with the Clinical Legal Education Program, including community immersion, client interviewing, legal aid work and documentation of human rights violations.
Mr. Villasis said the track is intended to develop more than doctrinal competence.
Students should be able to investigate and document violations, litigate, negotiate, conduct legal and policy research, and undertake advocacy.
They should also engage with vulnerable and marginalized communities and develop empathy, ethical responsibility, professional integrity and a commitment to social transformation.
Ms. Co said the Bar-centric approach remains a major challenge because law school curricula are already packed with subjects intended to prepare students for the licensure examination.
“With the curriculum already packed with bar examination subjects for a four-year program, there is hardly any room for electives or clinical training,” she said.
She said the legal education system should move beyond preparing students to pass the Bar and ensure that they can apply human rights principles in actual practice.
“Putting a subject back into a system that only produces knowledge will only produce more knowledge,” Legal Education Board Chairperson Jayson R. Barlis said in a separate presentation.
Mr. Barlis said the legal education system is designed to fill students’ heads with information but does not always develop the capacity to recognize and respond to the experiences of rights holders.
“A right is not information,” he said. “A right is a way of seeing a person.”
He said legal education should prepare lawyers to recognize the human being behind a legal problem, including victims who may be exhausted, frightened or uncertain about seeking help.
OUTCOMES AND CLINICAL EDUCATION
Mr. Barlis said the LEB has finalized a memorandum order setting 10 program outcomes as the national minimum standard for JD graduates.
The outcomes include empowering marginalized communities, leading legal aid initiatives addressing systemic inequalities, integrating constitutional principles and international standards into decision-making, and practicing developmental and social change lawyering to strengthen access to justice.
He said the outcomes are intended to be demonstrated through evidence of what students can actually do.
“No outcome belongs exclusively to any course,” Mr. Barlis said. “An outcome is a property of the whole program.”
He also identified clinical legal education as a key means of forming lawyers through actual encounters with communities.
“ If formation happens in the room and not in the lecture hall, then our most important instrument is clinical legal education,” he said.
Mr. Barlis said a survey of deans and clinic directors found that clinical programs were strong in ethical awareness, client sensitivity and community engagement, but weaker in strategy, structured feedback and measuring student development.
“Our clinics are the ones forming the heart, but they lack the means to measure and show it,” he said.
He added that the LEB is working with the Supreme Court on an Access to Justice Summit and Clinical Legal Education Summit, as well as manuals, guidebooks and toolkits for clinical legal education.
IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES
The study identified four conditions necessary for implementation: regulatory readiness, institutional commitment, resource sustainability, and human capacity development.
Mr. Villasis said not all law schools have faculty members with specialized expertise in human rights law and related fields.
Other challenges include the Bar examination-oriented culture of legal education, limited resources and differences in the institutional capacities of law schools.
The study recommended faculty development, shared teaching materials, model syllabi and partnerships with other institutions and practitioners.
It also called for a flexible approach that would allow schools to adopt transition arrangements based on their resources and capacity.
Mr. Villasis said the goal is not simply to adopt the track but to ensure that it can be implemented effectively and sustainably.
Ms. Co said human rights education is particularly urgent amid threats to freedom of expression, the right to organize, academic freedom and other fundamental rights.
She cited red-tagging, restrictions under the Anti-Terrorism Act, financial surveillance under the Terrorist Financing Prevention and Suppression Act, and arrests and killings involving human rights and peasant activists.
She also raised concerns over proposed measures in the 20th Congress, including the Digital Media Anti-False Information Act, the Foreign Information Interference Act, the Terror Grooming Prevention Act and provisions in the proposed Criminal Code Bill which may violate human rights once enacted as a law.
According to Ms. Co, some of these measures could expand the state’s role in determining what information is true, labeling individuals as spies or interferers, or bringing criminal charges more easily.
“Now, more than ever, human rights education is paramount,” she said.
She said human rights protections were won through protests, social movements and collective struggles for freedom and democracy.
“The social movements, it is the collective struggles for freedom and democracy that best protects human rights,” Ms. Co said.
Mr. Villasis said future lawyers may become litigators, prosecutors, public attorneys, government lawyers, corporate counsel, judges, policymakers, academics or advocates.
Whatever their career path, he said they would encounter legal questions affecting the rights and dignity of individuals and communities.
“The goal is not to move away from doctrinal competence or bar preparation,” he said.
“Rather, the goal is to recognize that we are preparing law students not only to pass the bar, but to become true lawyers,” he added.
The proposed track, he said, is one way to help students understand what rights exist, how those rights can be claimed and protected, and how they can be enforced.
“That ultimately is what it means to go beyond the bar,” Mr. Villasis said. — Kaizzer Angela Marie V. Manuba
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