The Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law was created to promote human rights and strengthen the links between human rights organizations, practitioners, and educators worldwide. By creating and enhancing such partnerships, the Academy hopes to strengthen the culture and prominence of human rights and humanitarian law around the world. The promotion of human rights can be achieved by establishing human rights training programs in both developing and developed countries. It can also be achieved by offering human rights scholars and practitioners the opportunity to study international human rights systems and laws together in an academic setting. The Academy accomplishes both of these tasks through its partnership programs, scholarship endeavors, Human Rights Award competition, Summer Program courses and the Inter-American Human Rights Moot Court Competition.The Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law addresses the need for a specialized, scholarly legal approach to human rights law. With a growing community of activists and human rights defenders and the need to adress new issues of international law, the Academy offers multiple specialized resources in human rights law to serve as a tool in confronting the current challenges that are shaping our world. The defense of human rights requires a professional community that is capable of undertaking a wide variety of actions.