The Human Rights Clinic exposes students to the practice of law in the international and cross-cultural context of human rights litigation and advocacy. An intensive critical seminar examines the actors, subjects, and tools of the human rights movement, as well as critiques coming from left and right. Specifically, the seminar considers the evolution of the human rights movement, how to locate litigation in human rights work, the difficulties in applying ‘traditional’ human rights methodology beyond the civil and political rights context, the developing human rights movement in the United States, and economic issues that arise in human rights norms and analysis.
The Clinic’s seminar, which lays out an analytic framework for much of the course, is combined with specially tailored exercises and simulations to introduce students to international human rights practice. Students participate in exercises and discussions to foster the development of other fundamental lawyering and advocacy skills, including interviewing techniques, fact investigation and development, project and case organization and management, legal drafting, oral and written advocacy (including media advocacy), and collaborative project work.
To bridge theory and practice, the Human Rights Clinic provides students with hands-on experience working on active human rights cases and projects. The skills-training imparted through classroom instruction and simulations is applied and tested in the context of real-world advocacy. Working in partnership with experienced attorneys and institutions engaged in human rights activism, both in the United States and abroad, students contribute to effecting positive change locally and globally as they hone their professional skills.
Clinic projects cover the full range of human rights advocacy, though in particular initiatives focus on (1) human rights advocacy in the United States, (2) litigating in international fora, (3) addressing problems at the intersection of development, private investment and human rights, and (4) supporting NGOs engaged in diverse forms of advocacy.
Over the years, students have represented a domestic violence survivor from the United States, juveniles sentenced to life without parole in the United States, and ethnic Haitians subjected to mass expulsions by the Dominican Republic before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights; convened meetings on the role of universities as socially responsible investors; and advocated for and assisted in the review of mining contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Peru, and Liberia. The Clinic's recent work has taken students across the U.S. and to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Equatorial Guinea, India, Mexico, Canada, Liberia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, South Africa, Peru and the DRC.
"The human rights clinic not only lent me some of the practical skills I needed to do the work I am doing now, but did so in an environment that encouraged creative and critical thinking about different approaches to human rights work."
Chris Albin-Lackey, JD ’04
Senior Researcher, Africa Division, Human Rights Watch
"The Human Rights Clinic was the highlight of my time at Columbia Law School. As a clinic participant, I had the opportunity to work on a range of advocacy projects, including preparing briefs for international litigation, interviewing victims of rights abuses, and helping draft legislation. These practical experiences, coupled with the space the clinic provided for reflecting critically on our role as advocates and what it means to do human rights work, were essential in preparing me to pursue a career in human rights advocacy."
Suzannah Phillips, JD ‘08
Henkin-Stoffel Human Rights Fellow
Vivo Positivo and Center for Reproductive Rights
"It's difficult to fully capture how much the Human Rights Clinic has meant to me both professionally and personally during and after law school. As a student, it provided a vital sense of shared interests with my fellow clinic students and connection to the work being done in the wider human rights community. The clinic work provided the skills, connections, and experience to achieve precisely what I wanted to do with my law degree--make a career in human rights."
Elisa Slattery, JD ‘04
Regional Manager and Legal Adviser for Africa, Center for Reproductive Rights
"The projects I worked on demonstrated that the law is not a one-size-fits-all solution to problems, but rather a type of advocacy language that must be carefully interwoven with different political, economic and social discourses. It reconfirmed to me the strength of the law as a means of fighting abuses, as well as how fragile human rights are when the law is abandoned or turned on its head."
Christopher Belelieu, JD ‘06
Associate, Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP
