Three Columbia Law School Students Awarded Leebron Human Rights Fellowships
New York, April 13, 2015—Three Columbia Law School students in the J.D. and LL.M. Classes of 2015 have been awarded David W. Leebron Human Rights Fellowships that will allow them to pursue a career in human rights law after graduation.
Alison Borochoff-Porte ’15, Anna Marie Bulman ’15 LL.M., and Holly Stubbs ’15 have each been awarded the one-year fellowships.
“These exciting young human rights advocates add to Columbia Law School’s long tradition of educating human rights leaders and launching their careers through the Leebron and other fellowships,” said Ellen P. Chapnick, dean for Social Justice Initiatives. “As a result, Columbia Law School graduates are working at a wide range of human rights organizations throughout the world.”
Borochoff-Porte will spend her fellowship with EarthRights International, working mostly out of the nonprofit’s Thailand office. At the Law School, Borochoff-Porte has explored the intersection of human rights, health, and environmental justice as a Human Rights Internship Fellow, an Oldham Fellow in China, and a participant in the Human Rights Clinic. Her work with EarthRights will focus on creating a framework of recommendations for communities affected by development and engaging corporate and government actors to discuss their views on environmental and social impact assessments of development projects.
Bulman, a former South Australian co-convenor for Australian Lawyers for Human Rights, focuses on the right to food and how international legal frameworks can be used to address food insecurity. During her Leebron Fellowship, she will return to the Legal Resources Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she previously interned, to help with current right-to-food litigation and to create a litigation tool and community guide to assist human rights litigators and community members dealing with cases in which governmental decisions impact peoples' customary rights and their right to food. She also will develop a framework for dealing with the impact of conservation or large-scale development decisions on communities’ food security that explores how such decisions can better incorporate community interests.
Stubbs has advocated for social and economic rights throughout her time at the Law School, including as an intern for the housing practice at the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, a summer intern in Myanmar, and through her work with the Human Rights Clinic, the Davis Polk Asylum Workshop, and the Columbia Center for Sustainable International Investment. She will spend her Leebron Fellowship at the Centre for Economic and Social Rights developing innovative methods of evidence gathering and creating a comparative review process for evidence in cases involving economic and social rights.
“We are thrilled to be able to support these three extraordinary and inspiring advocates as they continue their human rights careers,” said Sarah Knuckey, the Lieff Cabraser Heimann and Bernstein Clinical Associate Professor of Human Rights, director of the Human Rights Clinic, and faculty co-director of the Human Rights Institute, who served on the selection committee for the fellowships. “The 2015 Leebron fellows are at the cutting edge of human rights work—their projects are rigorous, grounded, and designed to serve marginalized communities and tackle new problems while also advancing the human rights field more broadly through innovative methods and tactics.”
The Leebron Human Rights Fellowships honor former Columbia Law School dean and current Rice University President David W. Leebron and his commitment to providing meaningful experiences in human rights law. The fellowship aims to provide recipients with the skills necessary to start or advance a career in the field of human rights law, whether in academic life; in governmental, intergovernmental, or nongovernmental organizations or agencies; or as legal practitioners.
The fellowships are administered by Social Justice Initiatives. The selection committee is made of Columbia Law School faculty, administrators, and human rights practitioners.