International Women's Human Rights

The two semesters of the IWHR Clinic offer students a number of work options from which to choose. In the course of a year, students work directly on one or more cases or projects. Some students represent individual clients, while others work with legal and activist partners here and abroad on various advocacy projects. Because we encourage collaboration, students are assigned to teams and also often work with lawyers outside the clinic. The teams meet weekly with their supervisors, as well as individually where necessary, to discuss their projects and benefit from each other's experiences.

Some of our recent projects include:

• Representation of immigrant domestic workers in federal litigation involving domestic and international issues under the Alien Tort Claims Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and domestic law claims. For example, we represent a South Asian domestic worker suing the Government of Kuwait and a high-ranking Kuwaiti diplomat for the damages she suffered when she was trafficked to the United States and held in slave-like conditions in the diplomat's Manhattan home. This case is the first seeking to hold a foreign government responsible for the acts of its diplomats, and part of a global effort to restrict diplomatic immunity for such offenses. In spring 2010, we will argue the case to the Second Circuit. From there it could go to the Supreme Court, back to trial or to settlement negotiations. Another pending case, now in discovery, involves a client who was trafficked here by her sister-in-law at age 16 and forced to work around the clock without pay and without being permitted to attend school. A trial is likely in the fall 2010.
  
  
• Preparation of amicus curiae briefs for international and domestic courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, Circuit Courts, the international criminal tribunals and national courts considering issues with human rights dimensions. We have submitted briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding enforcement against domestic violence in Brzonkala v. Morrison and City of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, and Sosa v. Machain; to the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia resulting in recognition of rape as torture and genocide; and, on behalf of local advocates, to foreign courts to combat a challenge to the Slovakian criminal abortion law.
  
  
• Preparation of petitions and amicus briefs for the Inter-American Commission on Human rights. We prepared an amicus brief supporting the right of a lesbian judge in Chile to regain custody of her children taken from her by the local courts. We supported the petition on behalf of Jessica Gonzales, the plaintiff in the Castle Rock case, for redress of U.S. failure to ensure the enforcement of her protective order. On behalf of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign and others, we prepared the first petition challenging violations of economic and social rights in the U.S. in regard to cutbacks on access to welfare, housing and health, and have filed numerous communications on gender violence with the participation of Haitian women's groups, the first resulting in the first declaration by a human rights body that rape is torture.
  
  
• Drafting of legislation and international documents, such as draft legislation for the U.S. Congress to revise the 2006 Military Commission Act and a draft of General Comment 2 on prevention of torture that was largely accepted by the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) and the subject of the Law Review's Symposium several years ago.
  
  
• Preparation of critical reports for various UN bodies, including the UN human rights treaty bodies. These have included NGO "shadow reports" critical of governmental practices and claims to the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT) critiquing the U.S. for the gender violence and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and for non-effective enforcement against domestic violence; to the CAT, prepared with Chilean colleagues addressing the practice of coercing confession of women suffering complications of clandestine abortion by withholding urgent treatment in public hospitals; to the CAT, the Human Rights Committee (CCPR) and the Committee on Economic and Social Rights (CESCR) challenging Nicaragua's absolute abortion law; and to the Committee to End Racial Discrimination (CERD) critiquing a variety of US policies having a race/gender impact. In every case, the Committees have embodied our critiques in final recommendations identifying abuses and calling for change. In some, these initiatives resulted in policy change; in others, they created pressure on the government, legitimated activists and pushed the boundaries of international human rights law.
  
  
• Preparation of written materials and presentations for UN discussions and negotiations. In l997-2000, IWHR was legal secretariat to the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, which was responsible for the negotiation of gender provisions in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the new foundation of international criminal law. This enabled students to research and vet Caucus positions submitted as Recommendations and Commentary, and to participate in its international delegations in the negotiations with other NGOs and delegates. This year, interns prepared for and presented a report to the Special Rapporteur on Housing which illuminated some of the gender dimensions of the housing and foreclosure crisis in the U.S. It was one of the first times that the gender/race dimensions of socio-economic policies were dissected and the interns are researching the possibility of federal litigation based on their work.
  
  
• Providing expert support to NGO human rights initiatives. IWHR interns served as assistant legal advisors to and drafted the Judgment for the Judges of the International Women's Criminal Tribunal on Japan's Military Sexual Slavery (Comfort Women). In 2009-10, interns provided legal support and are currently drafting the Judgment for another NGO initiative, the International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women of Burma, which took place on March 2 in NY.