European Law Students' Association

The European Law Students' Association (ELSA) is a politically neutral, independent and non-profit network of over 50,000 students of law and young lawyers in Europe , based in Brussels .

Goals and Activities

The goals are to promote and develop mutual understanding, cooperation and implementation of encounters between law students and young lawyers from different countries and legal systems , especially in Europe, through joint work in the fields of law , legal education and legal professions.

ELSA has formed three main programs with the help of which these goals are to be implemented as a matter of priority:

• Academic Activities (AA) and Moot Court Competitions (MCC)
  Lectures and other academic, primarily local events as well as negotiation competitions and writing of briefs
• Seminars & Conferences (S&C)
  national and international events, often lasting several days, with well-known guest speakers
• Student Trainee Exchange Program (STEP)
  international internship exchange

network

ELSA was founded in 1981 in Vienna by law students from Austria , Hungary , Poland and what was then West Germany . From this a European network has now developed. The structure on three levels is characteristic: local, national and international.

Local faculty groups

Local faculty groups have formed at more than 350 universities in Europe. Most of the groups can be found in Germany. With around 50,000 members in the respective faculty groups, ELSA is the world's largest association of law students.

National umbrella organizations

The faculty groups are spread across 44 countries. In most of these countries, national umbrella organizations have been set up to support and coordinate the work of the respective local groups. In small countries in which only one university offers a law course or in which a group has been established at only one law faculty (e.g. Malta ), the respective faculty group acts as the national umbrella organization.

Structure of the individual groups

The structural order of the groups follows a comparable scheme at all levels, whereby the solution found at ELSA International has largely prevailed.

Board

Each group is led by a board. This is made up of people with different areas of responsibility, although not all positions are always filled and the names of the offices can vary.

In most cases, the statutes stipulate that at least the first three positions are filled.

General meetings

The general meetings of the respective groups meet at least once a year, in Germany usually every six months. They are their highest decision-making bodies and follow the rules of the legal systems according to which the groups were formed.

ELSA (international umbrella organization)

ELSA is an association under Dutch law with headquarters in Amsterdam . The International Board, as the board of the umbrella organization is called, works in Brussels , where it maintains an office and residential building ( ELSA House ).

The task of ELSA International is to coordinate the entire network. ELSA International also maintains contact with other student associations around the world, for example the International Law Students' Association (ILSA) in North America, the Asian Law Students' Association (ALSA) Japan, the Australian Law Students' Association (ALSA), the African Law Students' Association (AfLSA) in South Africa and the Association des Étudiants Juristes de Côte d'Ivoire (AEJCI) in Ivory Coast .

Numerous international organizations have granted ELSA observer or consultant status:

• 1994 Observer status in Category C (mutual information relationship) at UNESCO (UNESCO Doc. 144 EX / Decisions, para 5.2).
• 1997 Special Consultative Status in the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations (UN Doc. E / 1997/97, ​​Decision 1997/295 [p. 158 f.]).
• 2000 Participatory Status (formerly Consultative Status ) at the Council of Europe .
• 2001 Consultative status at the 34th session of UNCITRAL from June 25th to July 13th 2001 ( UN Doc. A / 56/17 , para 7).
• 2005 Permanent Observer Status at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

Furthermore, ELSA has agreed to cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

ELSA in Germany

With around 11,500 members, ELSA makes up the largest part of the network in Germany and is also one of the most active associations.

Local faculty groups

ELSA is represented at every law faculty in Germany as well as some universities of applied sciences . There are a total of 43 local faculty groups: Augsburg, Bayreuth, Berlin, Bielefeld, Bochum, Bonn, Bremen, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Erlangen-Nuremberg, Frankfurt / Main, Frankfurt / Oder, Freiburg, Gelsenkirchen, Gießen, Greifswald, Göttingen, Halle, Hamburg, Hanover, Heidelberg, Jena, Kiel, Constance, Cologne, Leipzig, Lüneburg, Mainz, Mannheim, Marburg, Munich, Münster, Osnabrück, Passau, Pforzheim, Potsdam, Regensburg, Saarbrücken, Trier, Tübingen, Wiesbaden, Wismar and Würzburg.

The individual faculty groups are organized as registered associations, so they bear the abbreviation “e. V. “in the name. They must be recognized as non-profit or at least aim to be registered in the register of associations and be non-profit .

ELSA Germany e. V.

ELSA Germany has existed since 1989. V. as the umbrella organization of the German faculty groups. The association is based in Heidelberg .

Twice a year ELSA Germany organizes e. V. a general assembly in which the representatives of the faculty groups elect the national board with the status of full member, determine the budget of the association and coordinate the work of the local groups. The voting weight of the individual groups is calculated from the respective number of their members. In addition, local board members come together twice a year for so-called speakers' meetings (“Reftreff”) and receive further training in their business areas.

ELSA Germany is a founding member of the Association of German Student Initiatives (the former Cologne Round).

Austria

ELSA is represented in Austria with around 4,000 members in 6 local groups ( University of Vienna , WU Vienna , Graz , Linz , Salzburg and Innsbruck ). As a founding member of ELSA, ELSA Austria has existed since 1981. The local groups are independent associations with their own boards and budget plans.

Twice a year ELSA Austria organizes a general assembly in which the representatives of the local groups elect the national board, decide on the budget of ELSA Austria and coordinate the local work. Each local group has the same number of votes.

The major content-related projects of ELSA Austria include the "M&A Contract Competition" and the Antitrust Law Motocourt. ELSA Austria has also started its own (online) legal journal, the ELSA Austria Law Review (EALR).

Former

As ELSA is a student organization, it loses the majority of its members when it ends. In order to stop the resulting outflow of knowledge and relationships, the ELSA Lawyers Society was established on an international level and, on January 25, 2003, the ELSA Alumni Deutschland e. V. (EAD) founded.

The clubs have essentially set themselves two goals:

• for the alumni: Maintaining and developing the ELSA network
• for the active at ELSA: support in ideal and financial form

The ELSA Lawyers Society is led by an Executive Committee consisting of a President, a Secretary General, a Treasurer, a Vice President for ELS Trust and a Vice President for Marketing. They are elected for one year at the annual general meeting at the International Council Meeting.

The board consists of the chairman, the deputy chairman and the board member for finance and is elected for two years. A general assembly for the members takes place once a year.

literature

• ELSA Germany e. V. (Ed.): ELSA anniversary publication: 20 years of ELSA Germany e. V. ( PDF ). Heidelberg 2009.

Web links

• ELSA International website
• ELSA Germany website
• ELSA Austria website
• ELSA Switzerland website
• ELSA Lawyers Society website
• Website of ELSA Alumni Deutschland e. V.
• Website of the ELSA Moot Court Competition on WTO Law

Individual evidence

1. ↑ https://elsa.org/contact/
2. ↑ https://elsa.org/about/history/
3. ↑ The International Board ( Memento of the original from November 7, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 2011/2012. 
4. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ The ELSA network - ELSA Austria. (No longer available online.) In: www.elsa-austria.org. Archived from the original on July 5, 2016 ; Retrieved July 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ ELSA Austria Law Review - ELSA Austria. (No longer available online.) In: www.elsa-austria.org. Archived from the original on July 5, 2016 ; Retrieved July 5, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.