PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Students in the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic (IWHR) engage in change-lawyering through litigation and advocacy, locally and globally. In conjunction with women’s rights advocates, human rights lawyers, and grass-roots organizations in the United States and abroad, we advocate on behalf of individual clients in the context of promoting change in both national and international human rights law.

We urge international lawmaking institutions to redefine and implement human rights that will provide greater protection to, among others, those victimized by gender and sexual violence, and to advance reproductive and sexual rights as well as economic and social rights. In the United States, we represent immigrant domestic workers and other victims of human rights abuses with international and domestic claims in U.S. courts, as well as file amicus curiae briefs in domestic cases with significant and otherwise overlooked international dimensions.

Widely recognized for its expertise and contributions to the jurisprudence and practice of human rights, IWHR clinic enables students to engage in cutting edge work under close clinical supervision. We maintain an eclectic docket of cases and projects to provide both in-depth and broad experiences. Our goal is to develop a sound understanding of international human rights, as well as sharpen the lawyering skills necessary for effective law reform-oriented advocacy work applicable in both U.S. and international contexts.

The field of women's human rights enables students to learn how to identify gender-specific problems and challenge apparently neutral, but exclusionary human rights frameworks. This approach provides a transferable experience of simultaneously working with the diverse perspectives of the marginalized, generally, but focusing specifically on gender issues which are multi-dimensional, incorporating diversities among women in terms of race, ethnicity, geopolitical context, economic and other status, including discrimination based on non-hetero-normative sexual and gender identities. By addressing problems through the lens of human rights, students build capacity to use international human rights frameworks and institutions to reexamine and challenge the narrower rights approach of the U.S. Constitution in domestic and international fora while developing lawyering skills applicable purely to U.S. law reform efforts.

TYPICAL STUDENT PRACTICE

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 if 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 larger effort to restrict diplomatic immunity for such offenses. A copy of the Complaint filed in the action can be accessed here. A copy of the Court’s decision permitting service on the Diplomats in France using alternate means of service can be accessed here. Another pending case, now in discovery, involves a client who was trafficked by her step-sister at age 16 and forced to work around the clock without pay and without being permitted to attend school. A copy of the Complaint filed in this action can be accessed here and a copy of the IWHR Clinic’s Memorandum in Opposition to Motion to Dismiss can be accessed here. The Clinic also recently filed an action on behalf of the former domestic worker of two United Nations employees who was paid about 50 cents per hour for seven years of work, despite United Nations and United States State Department regulations requiring that domestic workers brought to the United States by employees of international organizations be paid at least the minimum wage. A copy of the Complaint filed in the action can be accessed here.
• 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 (a copy of the Brief filed by IWHR can be accessed here) and City of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (a copy of the Brief filed by IWHR can be accessed here), 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 regarding a challenge to the Slovakian criminal abortion law. We are currently preparing an amicus brief for the Peruvian courts urging prosecution of sexual violence as torture that occurred during the civil war.
• 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 a General Comment on prevention of torture now under consideration by the UN Committee Against Torture (CAT).
• Preparation of critical reports in conjunction with various UN bodies, including the UN human rights treaty bodies. Last year we prepared a shadow report (critical NGO report) 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 of laws in the U.S. against domestic violence. Another shadow report to CAT prepared with Chilean colleagues addressed the coerced confession and torture perpetrated by Chilean hospitals and police on women suffering from complications of abortions by withholding medical treatment until the women either confessed to self-abortion or identified who had performed the procedures. CAT concurred with our position and firmly censored Chile.
• Preparation of petitions and amicus briefs for the Inter-American Commission on Human rights. We are preparing 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 are supporting the ACLU’s petition on behalf of the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, City of Castlerock v. Gonzales, 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 a 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.
• 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, enabling students to research and vet Caucus positions, submitted as Recommendations and Commentary, and to participate in its international delegations in the negotiations.
• Providing expert support to NGO human rights initiatives. Students 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).

DISTINCTIVE SKILLS FOCUS

Our projects and skills agenda are designed to prepare students for a broad range of law reform both in the representation of clients presenting novel issues and through advocacy for legal and policy change with official bodies in collaboration with activist groups, experts and lawyers. We choose our work initially on what will constitute a multi-faceted learning experience for students and, in that context, on the needs of the human rights activists and effective strategies for social change. IWHR students may choose to carry a client caseload or work on one or two larger cases or projects.

In keeping with the law reform orientation of IWHR, all students have substantial opportunity to develop and refine strategic thinking, legal research, creative theory, and clear, persuasive writing skills. Our federal litigation permits students to engage in client counseling and negotiation, draft and defend legal documents, engage in investigation and discovery, and present in court. Our international projects involve working with partners, as well as opportunities for presentation to or lobbying of international bodies or working with NGO colleagues in presentations and collective strategic decision-making.

CLASSROOM COMPONENT

The IWHR seminar meets twice weekly for a total of 5-6 hours per week to broaden the students' working knowledge and critiques of human rights frameworks, principles, strategies and institutions generally, in addition to developing and sharpening lawyering skills necessary to excel at project work.

The first semester addresses the critical and gender focus 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 international criminal law, 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 rights, religion and culture, as well as the impact of neo-liberal globalization 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.

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.

CLINIC GRADUATES

The clinic prepares students to work in any legal environment. Although our work has an international focus, the skills learned here are important for all legal work and much of our work involves representing clients in U.S. courts. In addition to substantive human rights knowledge, former students emphasize the value of IWHR in honing their litigation and advocacy skills, and capacity to challenge injustice through creative, strategic thinking.

Our graduates work in a variety of capacities in national and international venues:

• As judicial clerks in New York and New Jersey state courts, U.S. and Australian federal courts, the Court of International Trade, and the international ad hoc tribunals
• In legal aid and legal services offices, plaintiff-side employment firms, and immigration firms and programs
• At UN Missions or domestic and international legal advocacy organizations such as the Center for Constitutional Rights, DRUM-Desis Rising Up and Moving, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Committee, the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, the International Disability Rights Caucus (which just finished negotiating the new treaty), and in humanitarian relief projects
• In voluntary bar association and public interest activities
• In further academic study and faculty positions

SOCIAL JUSTICE MISSION

IWHR Clinic's social justice mission is two-fold:

• To provide counsel and support to victims, activists and movements responsive to evolving demands for social justice addressing primarily gender issues
• To graduate students with foundational knowledge of international law, well-honed change-oriented lawyering skills and a sensitivity to role and multi-cultural perspectives