International Women's Human Rights

The IWHR seminar meets twice weekly for a total of 5-6 hours per week and the time is fairly evenly divided between substantive learning and issues and lawyering skills.

In the substantive component, the first semester develops the essential foundations of international law including through a critical and gender lens on foundational questions of international law: what constitutes legal authority in international law and how it is made, identification of the actors, including the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and how power is distributed, and what is/should be the relation between U.S. and international law. We generally examine developments in treaties with focus on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and international criminal law, including under the Alien Tort Claims Act and other federal statutes.

The second semester looks critically at the relation of gender to the broader human rights frameworks encompassing political, civil, economic, social and cultural rights, and compares them to U.S. law. We explore particular issues, such as gender discrimination, sexual orientation and transgender identities, trafficking, health and water rights, religion and culture, climate change, as well as the larger impact of neo-liberal economic policies and now the global economic crisis on human rights. Throughout the entire year, we address the potential and limitations of gender, intersectional and human rights approaches, multi-cultural issues and strategies for advancing human international rights in the U.S., as well as the relationship between legal and political strategies for social change.

With regard to the lawyering agenda, approximately one session per week is devoted to skills training, including international and domestic legal research, effective writing and editing, case planning, interviewing, client counseling, oral advocacy, taking of depositions and testimony, multi-cultural and ethical issues arising in all contexts. To the extent possible, we utilize our on-going project work in the skills training so that students can learn from each other and about each other's work. Some classes involve observation and critical assessment of official UN or domestic judicial processes and others involve rounds where students present their work and seek the strategic input of clinic colleagues.