Human rights advocates are part of a proud tradition reaching back more than a century to movements against slavery, said human rights champion Aryeh Neier at the Columbia Society of International Law’s March 26 Wolfgang Friedmann Conference at Columbia Law School. Neier accepted the annual Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award from the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law later that evening at New York City’s famous ‘21’ Club.
A proposed constitutional amendment introducing term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices could move the Court further in the direction of a 'living constitution' approach to constitutional interpretation, said Columbia Law School Professor Thomas W. Merrill in a March 11 debate with Northwestern University School of Law Professor James Lindgren.
The Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic will appear in front of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in D.C. today to call for the abolition of juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) sentences in the U.S. The clinic is co-counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Michigan’s JLWOP Initiative in a case filed with the Commission on behalf of 32 men and women charged, tried, and sentenced to life sentences in Michigan for offenses they committed as children.
At the helm of the new immigrants’ rights clinic, Elora Mukherjee will guide students in representing individual clients at two detention centers in New Jersey and oversee advocacy work on immigration policy issues.
The U.S. government has nominated Columbia Law School Professor Sarah H. Cleveland to serve as an independent expert on the Human Rights Committee. The United Nations treaty body monitors state compliance with one of the two multilateral human rights treaties that comprise the “International Bill of Rights.” The United States completed its own periodic appearance before the committee last week.
Columbia Law School’s LL.M. Arbitration Moot Court team took home first place at the Third LL.M. International Commercial Arbitration Moot Competition held March 13 and 14 in D.C.
Katherine Franke, director of Columbia Law School’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, announced today the launch of the Public Rights/Private Conscience project, a new think-tank created to address the increased use of religion-based exemptions from compliance with federal and state laws securing equality and sexual liberty.
