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See the Human Rights Clinic's docket here.
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 research and advocacy related to (1) human rights implementation in the United States, (2) counterterrorism practices in the U.S. and around the world, (3) challenges at the intersection of development, private investment and human rights, and (4) collaborations with NGOs engaged in diverse forms of engagement with the human rights framework and human rights mechanisms.
Over the years, students have represented 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; presented on the legal implications of U.S. lethal targeting practices in meetings with military lawyers and international law experts; advocated for and assisted in the review of mining contracts in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Peru, and Liberia; worked with U.S. federal, state and local officials to develop effective strategies for local implementation of human rights; supported the work of UN Special Rapporteurs in the areas of housing and the criminalization of poverty; and drafted shadow reports on U.S. compliance with human rights treaties. The Clinic's recent work has taken students across the U.S. and to the Dominican Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, India, Mexico, Peru and South Africa.
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"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
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"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
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"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
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"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
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