Encouraging inter-professional exchanges on subjects of common interest

"Although civil law courses were already being run by the International Department, this is the first time this type of cycle has been run over several consecutive weeks and was open to the entire community of legal practitioners. Given the numbers that enrolled, it seems that this cycle meets a real need and has found its public," says a pleased Alice Thibaud, Project Officer in the International Department of the ENM.

The participants were judges and prosecutors (from both the lower and the higher courts), notaries, lawyers and even embassy legal advisers. Over the 3 weeks of the course, they benefited from the viewpoints of contributors from a very diverse range of backgrounds – judges and prosecutors, but also lawyers, professors, an arbitrator, a notary, a sociologist, mediators, members of the Ministry of Justice and an expert from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) – and had the opportunity to compare and share their own viewpoints on many issues:

Legal protection and contract law : what is the role of each practitioner in the conclusion and execution of a contract? How to make a contract a real tool for making relationships more secure and predictable? How can foreign contract law be dealt with in court? Etc.
Intellectual property : what legal and judicial systems exist to protect works of the mind in France and Europe? How to appreciate the originality of a work of art? How are the civil and criminal aspects of IP infringement intertwined? Etc.
Family disputes and international law : what instruments of international law apply to family disputes? How do the authorities of different States cooperate? How does international family mediation work? Etc. These exchanges took place entirely online, on a platform that enabled quality simultaneous interpreting.

A civil cycle and a criminal cycle as part of the ENM's international offering

Civil cycle: 2^nd edition from 4 to 22 April 2022

"The feedback given by participants in the course evaluation questionnaires was particularly positive. The International Department has therefore decided to make this course a permanent feature, with a second edition due in 2022, which should be held from 4 to 22 April 2022," , explains Alice Thibaud. To offer participants more flexibility, the cycle will again be run in a distance learning format: one way for the International Department to take advantage of the lessons learned in the public health crisis and adapt its offer to the needs of its foreign partners.

The civil cycle as seen by the contributors

"I would like to thank the ENM for organising this very engaging course, and I was delighted to see the interest that our two professions have for intellectual property."op - Emmanuelle Hoffman, lawyer registered with the Paris and Quebec Bars, contributor to the intellectual property course.

"This type of cycle is also an opportunity for the contributors. It is a chance for us to discuss and share our knowledge and practice of the different international instruments with foreign legal practitioners. That constitutes an advantage for the different actors involved in handling requests for international mutual legal assistance." - Dimitri Desme, clerkà, currently working in the Department of Mutual Assistance, Private International and European Law at the Ministry of Justice, who was a contributor in the session on family disputes and international law.

Criminal cycle: from 27 September to 22 October 2021

Soon a new International Department criminal cycle will be running from 27 September to 22 October 2021, at the ENM's Paris site, attended by legal practitioners of all kinds and covering 4 topics: organised crime and judicial cooperation, the judicial treatment of terrorism and violent radicalisation, economic and financial investigations and cooperation between Member States of the European Union and third States.

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New civil law training cycle for foreign legal practitioners