Amancio (Tutu) Alicante Leon came to Columbia Law School as a Human Rights Fellow in the fall of 2004. Originally from the island of Annobón, Equatorial Guinea, Tutu received his J.D. degree from the University of Tennessee College of Law in 2001. He then spent three years litigating violations of the Fair Labor Standard Act, the Agricultural Worker Protection Act and other unfair immigration-related employment practice on behalf of migrant farm workers employed in the Deep South (Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee) as Coordinator of the Migrant Poultry and Catfish Worker Justice Project, Equal Justice Fellow and then Staff Attorney for Southern Migrant Legal Services (SMLS). He also volunteered with the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project (ProBAR), where he served as co-counsel on two successful asylum cases involving street children from Central America under deportation proceedings by the Department of Homeland Security.
At Columbia, in addition to his human rights work at the law school, Tutu was a project team member on the Sao Tome and Principe Economic and Political Development Project at the University's School for International and Public Affairs. In this role, he helped to facilitate a post-national forum on the implementation of economic and political development and provided advice and technical assistance to the government of Sao Tome and Principe regarding oil revenue management regulations.
Since completing his LL.M. degree at Columbia, Mr. Alicante has been working on international human rights issues related to transparency and accountability in the extractive industry of the Gulf of Guinea. He sits on the Board of Directors of the Highlander Resource and Education Center in Tennessee; is a committee member of the Peace-Building and Demilitarization Program for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) in Philadelphia; is a legal consultant for the Open Society Justice Initiative in New York; and is currently conducting legal research and drafting documents to support human rights cases at regional human rights commissions and judicial forums as a visiting researcher at the Barnard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice of the University of Texas School of Law. In addition to using litigation to redress injustices, Mr. Alicante hopes to help build space for independent civil society groups that can press for transparent and democratic governments that uphold human rights. In 2007, he was named an Echoing Green Fellow - a two-year fellowship awarded to "individuals with innovative ideas for creating new models for tackling seemingly unsolvable social challenges" (for more information, visit the Echoing Green Web site).
"My time at CLS remains, by far, my most rewarding and fulfilling year of professional development and maturation as a human rights lawyer. At a personal level, I was also able to forge very meaningful friendships with students and professors. If I could change anything about that year, I would prolong it indefinitely. I know this is a feeling that I share with all my colleagues from the human rights and public interest concentrations at CLS. I have continued to stay in touch with and rely on my LL.M. colleagues and professors. In short, at CLS, I developed life-long professional associates and mentors."
Tutu was profiled in the Winter 2009 Columbia Law School Magazine. Click here to read the full article.
Irene Baghoomians graduated from Columbia Law School as a Human Rights Fellow in 2001, after working for several years in the human rights field in her native Australia. She received her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Sydney in 1994, where she studied international law, human rights, holocaust and moral responsibility and dispute resolution and was active in several public interest and human rights groups.
Following her law studies in Australia, Ms. Baghoomians worked as a legal researcher for the Australian Law Reform Commission and as an election observer for the South African Elections in Sydney as a member of the Australian Council of Human Rights. She then worked as a legal policy adviser for the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, where her responsibilities included providing legal and policy advice to the Prime Minister, the Minister of State and the Secretary of the Department on indigenous and women's issues; and researching and drafting legal and policy briefing papers on native title, human rights law, violence against women, juvenile justice and administrative law. Just prior to enrolling at Columbia Law School, Ms. Baghoomians was a pro bono lawyer for the Redfern Legal Center and a legal/policy adviser for the Race Discrimination Unit of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC), a federal agency, both in Sydney. At the HREOC, she advised the Federal Race Discrimination Commissioner on pertinent legal and policy issues concerning indigenous criminal justice issues, race discrimination and race hatred both in Australia and abroad.
Upon completion of her LL.M. degree, Ms. Baghoomians received a second human rights fellowship to work as a legal intern at the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York. The Centre then hired her for a second year as a staff attorney. At the Centre she participated in the formulation, initiation and the conduct of innovative litigation (Alien Tort Claims Act cases) to further international human rights and humanitarian law issues globally, particularly in North Africa and the Middle East; of civil rights litigation relevant to the protection of rights guaranteed under the 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution (including the detention of persons in New York following 9/11 and illegal arrests of anti-Iraq war demonstrators); and of international human rights claims be fore the U.S. courts and intergovernmental bodies (including issues regarding enemy combatants, women and survivors of torture, and other egregious human rights violations).
Since July of 2004, Ms. Baghoomians has been a lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Sydney. She was also the coordinator of clinical legal education programs in 2005. Courses she has taught include Foundations; Law, Lawyers and Justice; External Placement Program; and Practicing in the Public Interest.
Irene is a member of the national committee of the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights (ALHR), an advocacy group which is a network of Australian lawyers active in practicing and promoting awareness of international human rights standards in Australia. In October 2004, at the request of Global Exchange, a human rights advocacy organization based in San Francisco, the ALHR nominated Ms Baghoomians as a delegate for an international observer team for the November Elections. Ms Baghoomians was an election observer in Cleveland Ohio and contributed to the final report which advocated for comprehensive reform of the electoral process. Ms. Baghoomians has also been active in promoting awareness of the civil liberties implications of Australian Government's most recent anti-terrorism legislation by writing submissions to Senate Inquiries, providing testimony to an International Commission of Jurists Expert Panel and in seminars.
"I look back at my time in CLS with enormous fondness. The human rights fellowship enabled me to come to New York, a city that I have always loved, to meet human rights scholars, lawyers and activists from all parts of the world, and to immerse myself in an environment which fostered intellectual dialogue and commitment to social justice. I formed enduring friendships at CLS which I will always treasure, and gained invaluable knowledge, insights and skills which will stand me in good stead as a human rights advocate and law teacher in years to come."
Lisa Magarrell has recently returned to Columbia Law School as a visiting researcher, after having completed her LL.M. degree as a Human Rights Fellow in 2001. On sabbatical from her current position as a Senior Associate at the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), she is working on a 4-month writing project about the Greensboro (North Carolina) Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a grassroots community truth recovery process she advised over the past several years. The Commission conducted a two-year inquiry into the events, causes, context and consequences of the 1979 killings of 5 anti-Klan demonstrators by Ku Klux Klan and Nazi members, the failure of local police to prevent the deaths, and the failure to bring those responsible to account. Ms. Magarrell is working with a co-author in Greensboro to tell the story of the Commission, which rendered its final report in May 2006.
Ms. Magarrell has devoted nearly her entire legal career to human rights and social justice causes. After completing her J.D. degree at the University of Iowa in 1979, she was a staff attorney at Evergreen Legal Services Farmworker Division in Washington State, where she worked on behalf of migrant farmworkers on issues dealing with employment law, worker's compensation, civil rights, immigrants' rights and federal farmworker protective legislation. She later became the Directing Attorney for the Joint Legal Task Force on Central American Refugees (JLTF) in Seattle, where she was responsible for the representation of Guatemalan and Salvadoran refugees in immigration deportation proceedings and political asylum cases. This National Lawyers Guild project also provided training and supervised roughly one hundred pro bono attorneys who donated their time to the JLTF.
At that point in her career, Ms. Magarrell decided to spend a summer in El Salvador as a volunteer for the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of El Salvador (CDHES), where she accompanied CDHES personnel in documenting serious human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. After a brief hiatus back in the US, she decided she was not ready to leave her work in El Salvador, and was eventually named Coordinator of the International Section of the Legal Department. Ms. Magarrell spent the next six years in San Salvador, directing CDHES casework before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights; prepared complaints, briefs and thematic reports on violations; and represented the CDHES at sessions in Washington, DC. She also authored several reports on torture, disappearances and the status of political prisoners for submission to UN working groups and special rapporteurs.
In 1995, Ms. Magarrell went to work for the United Nations Verification Mission in Guatemala, a mission which was first established as a verification mission to ensure compliance with an initial human rights accord, and then expanded over the course of the peace negotiations to verify the Peace Accords' broad national agenda for reform and reconciliation. She spent the next five years as a legal observer, regional coordinator and field coordination officer in regions throughout the country, working in political and institutional relations, doing press work, writing reports and overseeing civilian, police and military field teams who verified violations of the peace agreements.
Upon completing her LL.M. at Columbia, Ms. Magarrell joined the ICTJ, based in New York. The ICTJ's primary aim is to promote accountability by helping countries develop effective responses to human rights abuse arising from repressive rule, mass atrocity or armed conflict, and working in established democracies to address unresolved legacies of abuse. As a Senior Associate, Ms. Magarrell has provided technical assistance, policy advice, capacity-building, strategic research and other program work on transitional justice issues in countries such as Peru, Canada, Guatamela, Timor-Leste, Ghana and Colombia, as well as the U.S.
"This is the second time I've come to Columbia to have time to think and reflect about my human rights work," said Ms. Magarrell, whose current sabbatical is supported by the ICTJ . "When I came to Columbia as a Human Rights Fellow in 2000, I had been doing human rights work for more than 13 years in Central America and had many more years of practical experience in this field, but had never had the chance to formally study human rights or do critical thinking on it outside the context of the emergency settings in which I had been working. It is an enormous opportunity and I am grateful that the Law School has made it possible for me to return as I think about the Greensboro experience and what it might offer to the US as we struggle to address the legacy of this country's past."
Sonia Mansoor came to Columbia Law School just after completing her law degree at the Pakistan College of Law in Lahore, Pakistan. Despite her relative youth, she had already established herself as a human rights advocate in Pakistan through her work during law school. She worked as a women's human rights advocate at the AGHS Legal Aid Cell in Lahore researching the effects of Islamic code on the treatment of victims of gender-based violence in Pakistan and medical reporting for domestic violence victims; recording case histories of rape victims falsely accused of adultery, an act punishable under Islamic law; investigating the conditions of pre-trial detainees; and working on a research project relating to the judicial treatment of men who commit honor killings. She also spent a summer as an intern at the Pakistan Women Lawyer's Association (PAWLA) in Karachi, preparing an organizational report on domestic violence litigation and coordinating a project to raise awareness of domestic violence laws in Pakistan.
Upon completion of her studies at Columbia, Ms. Mansoor spent a summer working with victims of domestic violence in New York City as an Equal Justice America Intern at the Sanctuary for Families, a division of the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services. She then returned to Pakistan and worked as a consultant for Madadgaar, the first crisis-intervention helpline for women and children in Pakistan, a joint project of UNICEF and Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid. She then worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Women's Development, Social Welfare & Special Education (a division of the government of Pakistan) on a project funded by the Department for International Development. Ms. Mansoor prepared the inception report for the Pakistan Family Protection Project, a project for the implementation of the National Strategic Framework for Family Protection of the Government of Pakistan.
In September of 2003, Ms. Mansoor returned to New York and Sanctuary for Families as an Equal Justice Works Fellow. Funded by the firm Greenberg Traurig LLP, her project's aim was to provide legal services to South Asian battered immigrant women in New York City. Her work included cases in immigration, divorce, custody, visitation, public benefits and criminal justice advocacy. She also conducted community outreach to temples and mosques; prepared a "know your rights" and cultural sensitization pamphlet; and formed a linguistically competent and culturally sensitive pro bono panel of lawyers and students for the organization. Upon completion of her fellowship in 2005, Ms. Mansoor returned to Pakistan to join the law faculty of Lahore University of Management Sciences under Professor Roger Normand (the founder of the Center for Economic and Social Rights at Lahore University and a former adjunct faculty member at Columbia University's School for International and Public Affairs). She helped Prof. Normand develop the first-ever two-semester mandatory international human rights curriculum for Pakistani law students based on syllabi from leading U.S. law schools.
Ms. Mansoor was soon awarded another grant by Greenberg Traurig LLP to continue her work at the Sanctuary for Families in New York. She also was hired as a Public Benefits Legal Advocate for the Center for Battered Women's Legal Services. Since January of 2006 she has engaged in center-based advocacy with welfare job centers that deny or deter immigrant clients from applying for public benefits; conducted fair hearings and administrative law appeals; and provided trainings on alien eligibility for public benefits.
"The day I came to Columbia Law School as a Human Rights Fellow was my first visit to the United States. The difference in resources and the quality of education between Pakistan and a top American law school was striking, especially since there were no courses offered in international human rights law in Pakistan at the time. Columbia Law School proved to be a stepping stone for my career as a human rights activist committed to combating violence against women. While at Columbia, I devoted myself to learning as much as possible about women's human rights in America. I sought to know more about how the law could increase the safety of immigrant women fleeing domestic violence in the United States. Studying at Columbia Law School was a mind-opening experience with its Socratic method of teaching, open-book exams and take home exams - teaching methods I had never been exposed to before."
A 2002 graduate of Torcuato Di Tella University Law School in Buenos Aires, Argentina with a focus in international law, Tamara Paula Taraciuk Broner began cultivating her interest in human and civil rights law while still in law school. As an intern for the Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC), she researched jurisprudence related to gay and lesbian rights to marriage and assisted staff attorneys in litigation. After completing her studies, she was named a Rómulo Gallegos Human Rights Fellow for the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the Organization of American States in Washington, DC. As a member of an IACHR fact-finding mission, she interviewed governmental officials and civil society members and researched human rights and the rule of law in Guatemala. She also analyzed documentation on the situation of women's rights in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and drafted judgments approved by the IACHR in cases against Colombia for alleged human rights violations. After completing her fellowship, she stayed on with the IACHR as a Consultant to draft its 2003 report on the rule of law in Guatemala.
Ms. Taraciuk then remained in Washington to spend a year as a Junior Scholar for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in their Latin American Program. She coordinated the implementation of a project on citizen security that consisted of community-based interventions in six countries in Latin America; researched how international relations theory can help enforce human rights and democratic governance in Latin America; and organized a conference on the role of human rights as a foreign policy strategy and the impact of human rights activism in state behavior.
Just prior to enrolling at Columbia, Ms. Taraciuk was awarded a fellowship at the University of Chile Law School to study human rights, transitional justice and democratization processes and received her post-graduate diploma from the University. Since completing her LL.M. degree, she has been working at the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW), first as Alan R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow, and currently as a researcher. As a fellow, she co-researched and co-authored a report, entitled Lost in Transition: Bold Ambitions, Limited Results for Human Rights Under Fox that evaluated President Fox's human rights record, specifically related to foreign policy, transparency, accountability of past human rights abuses and the criminal justice system. She is currently monitoring the human rights situation in Mexico. Throughout her career, Ms. Taraciuk has also authored several articles, conference reports and policy bulletins related to her work.
"Some of the most rewarding aspects of my CLS experience as an HR fellow were my activities in the human rights clinic. I was able to learn and practice various areas of law, ranging from documenting cases of juvenile life without parole in Michigan prisons to researching gender perspectives in poverty reduction strategies in Bolivia."
