Current Projects

Report to the UN Human Rights Committee: U.S. Criminalization of Abortion and Pregnancy Outcomes

In September 2023, the Human Rights and Gender Justice Clinic, If/When/How, and Pregnancy Justice have authored a new report on Criminalization and Punishment for Abortion, Stillbirth, Miscarriage, and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes. The report highlights human rights violations that occur when states pass laws that criminalize performing abortions and when state officials misuse other laws to surveil, investigate, arrest, detain, and prosecute pregnant individuals based on the perceived impact of their actions on their pregnancy.

Read the Report

Read the Summary

Gender Persecution in Afghanistan

In March 2023, the Institute for Gender, Law, and Transformative Peace at CUNY School of Law, launched a report, Gender Persecution in Afghanistan. This report provides in-depth analysis of the Taliban’s acts to deprive Afghans of fundamental rights on the basis of gender — acts that may amount to the crime against humanity of gender persecution. Issued as a Part One of forthcoming analyses, this report focuses on deprivations of three representative sample rights: the rights to education, assembly and expression. It examines Taliban policies to deprive each of these fundamental rights on a discriminatory basis, and provides samples of crimes they reportedly committed in order to enforce these rights violations. It also describes legal analysis and evidence demonstrating how these acts or crimes can amount to gender persecution.

Reproductive Rights and Defense of Pregnant People in the U.S., Asia and Latin America

This project focuses on reproductive rights issues in the United States, South Asia and Latin America. Students work with if/when/how, Pregnancy Justice (formerly National Advocates for Pregnant Women), the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) and UN Human Rights Experts. Past projects include: documenting state laws that can be used to criminalize self-managed abortion and pregnancy loss, researching the impact of conscientious objection by health care providers on the provision of sexual and reproductive health services, and reports to UN human rights bodies documenting criminalization of pregnancy outcomes, obstetric violence, maternal mortality, separation of families and racial disparities in sexual and reproductive health and child removal policies in the United States. The Clinic also files human rights amicus briefs to federal and state courts in cases challenging abortion restrictions, criminal prosecution of pregnant people following miscarriages, discrimination against parents with disabilities by ACS and detention of pregnant people for forced drug treatment. In 2019, the Clinic worked with the NYC Human Rights Commission to draft a report on Pregnancy and Caregiver discrimination.

Internationally, we are involved in research and advocacy to stop forced marriage in South Asia and litigation pending before the Inter-American Commission brought on behalf of a woman in Chile who was forcibly sterilized because she is HIV positive. In 2013, students drafted a brief for the Commission on international standards prohibiting forced sterilization. In past years, we have worked to reform laws criminalizing abortion and access to contraceptives in the Philippines.

Ending Collateral Consequences of Sex Trafficking

This project addresses the collateral consequences of the criminal prosecution of survivors of sex trafficking in the United States. Students work with the Legal Aid Society’s Exploitation Intervention Project to represent individuals seeking post-conviction relief for criminal convictions under the START Act. Students also have been involved in international advocacy before the U.N. and law reform efforts in the U.S. to challenge the criminalization of trafficked persons in the first place, and to ensure that when they have incurred criminal convictions that they have access to effective remedies to vacate convictions and redress the harms of criminalization.
Individual client representation involves interviewing clients, legal research, drafting legal briefs and affidavits. The advocacy work has involved researching both international and U.S. laws, interviewing, report drafting, and engaging with U.N. human rights experts.

Since 1997, HRGJ has focused significant resources to its “Bringing Human Rights Home” program, which applies international human rights standards to laws, policies and cases in the United States.

Children in Adult Prisons

In partnership with the Juvenile Life Without Parole Initiative, HRGJ has been involved in advocacy before the U.N. and the Inter-American Commission to challenge the incarceration of children in adult prisons.

Trafficking

Learn more about the Clinic’s work representing trafficking victims.

Reproductive Rights and Defense of Pregnant People

Learn more about our work on reproductive rights and defense of pregnant people.

Domestic Violence

HRGJ has filed human rights amicus briefs in major Supreme Court cases concerning domestic violence (Brzonkala v. Morrison and City of Castle Rock v. Gonzales). We have also prepared briefs and made oral presentations to the Inter-American Commission concerning the police failure to enforce an order of protection in the Jessica Gonzales case. The Clinic has also submitted a critique of the U.S.’s ineffective enforcement against domestic violence to the U.N. Committee Against Torture.

Gender and the “War on Terror”

The Clinic has submitted a shadow report to the U.N. Committee Against Torture critiquing the U.S. for the gender violence and abuse at Abu Graib prison in Iraq and has submitted proposed draft legislation for the U.S. Congress to revise the 2006 Military Commission Act.

Economic and Social Rights

HRGJ has been at the forefront of challenging U.S. social and economic rights violations before the U.N. and regional human rights bodies. In l999, 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. HRGJ has also submitted a report on intersection of poverty and gender-based violence to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. In 2009, Clinic prepared and presented a report to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Housing, illuminating the gender dimensions of the housing and foreclosure crisis in the U.S. In 2017, HRGJ submitted a report to the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty on prohibitions on public benefits and health care coverage and criminalization of self-induced abortion.

Racial Discrimination

In 2022, HRGJ and partners authored a shadow report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) on Racial Coercion and Control Over Reproductive Decision-Making and Families. In 2001, HRGJ helped prepare a shadow report on women of color and health which was submitted to the CERD as part of a report, organized by the Urban Justice Center, on the intersectional impact of race discrimination on women in New York.

Gender-Based Violence and LGBTQ+ Issues

HRGJ has helped to prepare shadow reports on gender-based violence and LGBTQ+ human rights violations for the U.S. reviews by the Human Rights Committee (2005), Committee Against Torture (2006) and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (2007).

International Conferences

Professor Copelon and the IWHR Clinic helped to develop theory and proposed language supporting reproductive rights as human rights adopted in the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo Conference 1994) and the Fourth Conference on Women (Beijing 1995) conference documents. IWHR helped to spearhead and organize the “Roundtable on Human Rights Dimensions of Women’s Health, with Particular Attention to Sexual and Reproductive Rights,” sponsored by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in 1998. This meeting laid the foundation for continuing work around reproductive rights and health in many sectors.

Defending Pregnant People

HRGJ authored two human rights briefs to challenge the prosecution of pregnant women for the death of a fetus following a miscarriage. In each case, the women were either prosecuted for murder (Gibbs v. Mississippi) or manslaughter (Mississippi v. Buckhalter) of their fetus following a miscarriage. HRGJ worked with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to recognize the forcing pregnant people into inpatient drug rehabilitation violates the human right to be free from arbitrary detention and discriminates against women. HRGJ works closely with if/when/how and Pregnancy Justice to document laws and prosecution policies that lead to criminalization of pregnant people for self-managed abortion and pregnancy outcomes.

Challenges to Criminal Abortion Restrictions

HRGJ has worked to challenge criminal abortion laws and restrictions in UN forums. In addition to its work on the U.S. the Clinic has exposed the practice of coercing confession from women suffering complications from clandestine abortions by withholding treatment in public hospitals in Chile, the complete abortion ban in Nicaragua, the compete abortion ban, lack of post-abortion care and ban on contraceptives in the Philippines. In Colombia, we had advocated for women’s right to have a legal abortion against illegal obstructions and the government’s failure to ensure this right and authored an amicus brief to the Colombian Constitutional Court in a case that resulted in the decriminalization of abortion up to 24 weeks.

Forced Sterilization

The Clinic assisted the Center for Reproductive Rights on the case F.S. v. Chile, a case pending before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which challenges the forced sterilization of a 20-year old woman because she was HIV positive. The Clinic also worked in collaboration with Colombian service providers documenting to the UN Human Rights Bodies the forced sterilization of girl-child soldiers.

Fetal “Right to Life”

Working with partners, the Clinic has documented state criminal laws that support the concept of fetal personhood in the United States. In 2007, the Clinic submitted an international law amicus brief to the Constitutional Court of Slovak Republic in support of legislation providing increased access to abortion services. In response to fetal “right to life” arguments, the brief summarizes the reject of the claim of a fetal right to life in the foundational and subsequent interpretative human rights documents.

A New Treaty on Crimes Against Humanity

Last summer, the International Law Commission, a UN body dedicated to developing international legal standards, completed its first reading of the draft articles for a new convention on crimes against humanity, which members of the General Assembly’s Sixth Committee (on legal questions) reviewed in the fall. While the current treaty draft embraces strong language from the Rome Statute, including gender as a protected class from persecution, it also adopts its unusual footnote defining gender.
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Holding ISIS Accountable for Gender-Bases Crimes

In November 2017, the HRGJ filed an Article 15 communication the first of its kind to the International Criminal Court. The submission argues that the international community should prosecute ISIS fighters for crimes committed on the basis of gender, including discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. To learn more about the ICC submission, watch the event held at CUNY Law School just before the submission was made: Prosecuting ISIS Crimes against Women and LGBTIQ Persons.

Promoting the Rights, Protection, and Physical Security of Marginalized and At-Risk Iraqis

Thousands of Iraqis today are at risk of violence and honor killings. They are deprived of their human rights, ostracized, and marginalized, and hundreds have even been brutally murdered in the past three years. With regard to honor crimes, women and girls, as well as culturally and gender non-comforming individuals alike remain at serious risk of violence due to conduct perceived to be contrary to traditional mores. Our project works to promote the rights, protection and physical security of marginalized and at-risk Iraqis and to prevent these groups from experiencing violence and protect those who are threatened.

Seeking Accountability for Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Syrian Women

As violence in Syria has escalated, accounts of sexual and gender-based violence continue to grow, yet these crimes go largely undocumented as survivors are deterred from seeking medical attention or psychosocial support by cultural shame and lack of access. Our project integrates advocacy and capacity building, with documentation and reporting of women’s human rights violations in order to bring accountability and redress for these crimes in transitional justice processes as well as increase participation of Syrian women leaders with the international venues charged with upholding human rights and building peace.

Redress for Colombian Child Soldiers

The IWHR Clinic works to address human rights violations committed against demobilized child soldiers in Colombia, specifically looking at the intersection of gender and disabilities. Thousands of children have been recruited as soldiers in Colombia’s armed conflict. In a war that pits the government and right-wing paramilitary groups against anti-government guerillas, all sides exploit children to advance their combat goals. Many are subjected to sexual violence and many suffer from either cognitive/social or physical disabilities. Girl members of illegal armed groups are particularly vulnerable to grave sexual violence. Clinic students engage in litigation through both UN and regional human rights mechanisms. Students work directly with clients to develop testimony; conduct in-country fact-finding investigations on human rights abuses; provide know-your-rights trainings, and; engage with UN Human Rights Experts.

Sexual Violence and LGBT Discrimination in Haiti

Post-earthquake violence against women in Haiti is widespread, especially for those living in displacement camps or poor neighborhoods. Entrenched social norms both perpetuate and justify discrimination and violence against women and deprive women of a multitude of legal rights including access to justice in the courts. Violence against LGBT community members has also been a pervasive problem in Haiti. Homosexuality remains a taboo, and as a result, the lives of many LGBTI individuals in Haiti are characterized by secrecy, isolation, discrimination, and violence. Clinic students work on addressing human rights violations committed against Haitian women and girls who are victims of sexual violence and discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. Students work directly with clients; conduct a “know your rights” training for Haitian grassroots women’s groups; conduct in-country fact-finding investigations on human rights abuses; develop testimony, and; engage with those bodies and other UN Human Rights Experts, as well as relevant international and local NGOs working on this issue.

Promoting the Rights, Protection, and Physical Security of Marginalized and At-Risk Iraqis

The IWHR Clinic works to promote the rights, protection and physical security of marginalized and at-risk Iraqis and to prevent these groups from experiencing violence and protect those who are threatened. Thousands of Iraqis today are at risk of violence as a result of their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, or nonconformist social behavior. They are deprived of their human rights, ostracized, and marginalized, and hundreds have even been brutally murdered in the past three years. With regard to honor crimes, women, men, and members of the LGBT community alike remain at serious risk of violence do to conduct perceived to be contrary to traditional mores. Clinic students engage in litigation through both UN human rights mechanisms; collaborate with UN Human Rights Experts; develop and submit expert testimony; train partner groups on how to best identify and document cases of marginalized and at-risk Iraqis, and; conduct investigations on Iraqi gender human rights abuses.

Reproductive Rights in Texas, Asia and Latin America

This project focuses on reproductive rights issues in the United States, South Asia and Latin America. Students work with the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR), an international human rights organization that works to protect reproductive rights and promote access to reproductive health services. In 2012-14, students are working to address the “perfect storm” of restrictive state and federal laws that have led to profound barriers for women seeking reproductive health care in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. The Valley is one of the poorest regions in the U.S. and home to a large population of immigrants and Latinos. For more information about the women of the Rio Grande Valley see http://www.nuestrotexas.org/

Internationally, we are involved in research and advocacy to stop forced marriage in South Asia and litigation pending before the Inter-American Commission brought on behalf of a woman in Chile who was forcibly sterilized because she is HIV positive. In 2013, students drafted a brief for the Commission on international standards prohibiting forced sterilization. In past years, we have worked to reform laws criminalizing abortion and access to contraceptives in the Philippines.

Challenging the Incarceration of Youth in Adult Prisons in the United States

This project works to end the incarceration of children in adult prisons in the United States. Students are working with prisoners’ rights attorney Deb LaBelle, the Campaign for Youth Justice and state activists in advocacy before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Committee to challenge state laws that allow children as young as 14 to be incarcerated in adult prisons. In 2013-14, students drafted submissions to international bodies, organized a visit to the US by an IACHR human rights expert and will be lobbying the UN in Geneva in March 2014 as part of the review of US compliance with its human rights obligations. In 2012-13, students worked to develop the facts around the incarceration of youth in Michigan through surveys, correspondence and interviews with incarcerated youth and organized a hearing before the Inter-American Commission in March 2013. See: IWHR Presents at Hearing on Incarceration of Youth in Adult Prisons.

Ending Collateral Consequences of Sex Trafficking

This project addresses the collateral consequences of the criminal prosecution of survivors of sex trafficking in the United States. Students work with the Legal Aid Society’s Trafficking Victims Legal Defense and Advocacy Project (TVLDAP) to represent individuals seeking post-conviction relief for prostitution-related convictions. Students are also involved in international advocacy before the U.N. and law reform efforts in the U.S. to challenge the criminalization of trafficked persons in the first place, and to ensure that when they have been treated as criminals, trafficking survivors have access to effective remedies to redress the harms of criminalization.

Individual client representation involves interviewing clients, legal research, drafting legal briefs and affidavits. The advocacy work involves researching both international and U.S. laws, interviewing, report drafting, and engaging with U.N. human rights experts.