2008 Human Rights Fellows Named

Law Students Suzannah Phillips ’08 and Jonathan Gant ’08
Named Newest Fellows

Press Contact:
Sonia von Gutfeld, 212-854-1453, [email protected]

March 19, 2008 (NEW YORK) – Columbia Law School announced the selection of two human rights fellows for 2008. Suzannah Phillips ’08 is this year’s Henkin-Stoffel Fellow, while Jonathan Gant ’08 is this year’s David W. Leebron Human Rights Fellow.

Phillips will spend one year working with Vivo Positivo in Santiago, Chile, where she will investigate discrimination against women living with HIV/AIDS who seek reproductive health care services, and publish a report to help NGOs in the region that litigate such cases internationally. Phillips will spend the second year of her fellowship at the Center for Reproductive Rights International Division in New York City, focusing on domestic and international litigation by NGOs as well as policy and public awareness strategies.

Gant will work at the Sustainable Development Institute in Monrovia, Liberia, providing community outreach and advocacy to prevent companies granted logging concessions from infringing on community land tenure rights. 

The Henkin-Stoffel Human Rights Fellowship was created in admiration of University Professor Emeritus Louis Henkin’s leadership in the field of human rights and recognition of Columbia Law School as a center of excellence in human rights education. The fellowship consists of two one-year placements, with one to be located in the developing world.

The David W. Leebron Human Rights Fellowship honors former Columbia Law School Dean Leebron’s commitment to providing young graduates with meaningful experiences in human rights law. It provides a stipend to a Columbia Law School graduate to work in human rights law either in the United States or abroad.

Serving on the fellowship selection committees were Peter Rosenblum, the Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein Associate Clinical Professor in Human Rights; Sarah Cleveland, the Louis Henkin Professor of Human and Constitutional Rights; Ellen Chapnick, Dean for Social Justice Initiatives; Harlene Katzman, Dean of the Center for Public Interest Law; and Stephen Hanmer ’05, Child Protection Officer at the International Rescue Committee.

Columbia Law School, founded in 1858, stands at the forefront of legal education and of the law in a global society. Columbia Law School joins traditional strengths in international and comparative law, constitutional law, administrative law, business law and human rights law with pioneering work in the areas of intellectual property, digital technology, sexuality and gender, and criminal law.