Founded in 1998, the Human Rights Institute serves as the focal point of international human rights education, scholarship and practice at Columbia Law School. The Institute fosters the development of a rich and comprehensive human rights curriculum and builds bridges between theory and practice, between law and other disciplines, between constitutional rights and international human rights, and between Columbia Law School and the world wide human rights movement.
The Institute currently focuses on a number of key themes: fostering international human rights norms and strategies at 'home' in the United States, ensuring human rights compliance in the 'war on terror,' strengthening the Inter-American system of human rights, and promoting ‘economic justice’ around the world. The Institute hosts a wide array of symposia, lectures and other events to bring practitioners and scholars together. It runs an active speakers’ program during the academic year and cooperates closely with student groups on other program activities. In addition, through the affiliated Human Rights Clinic, students gain hands-on experience working on active cases and projects with Columbia Law School faculty and leading human rights organizations in the United States and abroad.
The Institute works closely with the Graduate Legal Studies Program to select Human Rights Fellows for the LL.M. program, and with the Center for Public Interest Law to select fellows to work in human rights after graduation. The Institute works closely with the University-wide Center for the Study of Human Rights. For a listing of curriculum offerings in the area of Human Rights, please see our curriculum page.
NEWS & FEATURES
HRI's Deputy Director, Caroline Bettinger-Lopez, has recently published a Primer on the Inter-American Human Rights system in the Clearinghouse Review of Law and Poverty available here.
HRI hosted a full day CLE conference on Human Rights and State Law on April 17th at Skadden in New York City. We hope to post the video of the training on our website. To request a copy of the day's materials, please see our CLE webpage.
HRI's Executive Director, Risa Kaufman, serves as a co-coordinator of The Campaign for a New Domestic Human Rights Agenda, which is working to build human rights into the baseline of government. See the Campaign's recent letter supporting a U.S. Commission on Civil and Human Rights, published in the New York Times on January 27,2009.
The second hearing in Jessica Gonzales v. United States of America took place at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on October 22, 2008. For more information and to watch the video of the hearing, please visit our Gonzales case page here.
Founded in 1998, the Human Rights Institute serves as the focal point of international human rights education, scholarship and practice at Columbia Law School. The Institute fosters the development of a rich and comprehensive human rights curriculum and builds bridges between theory and practice, between law and other disciplines, between constitutional rights and international human rights, and between Columbia Law School and the world wide human rights movement. 