The International Human Rights Clinic advances human rights around the world while training the next generation of advocates. Working closely with expert clinicians, law students take the lead on lawyering and advocating for human rights across a range of thematic and geographic areas, using a variety of skills that reflect the diverse modes of human rights practice. The Clinic serves as partner and legal advisor to human rights and civil rights organizations in the United States and globally, including international, grassroots, and movement-based organizations, as well as communities and individuals directly affected by abuse.
Visit the clinic’s For Students page to read more about the Clinic’s projects, values, and FAQs.
Students are at the heart of the International Human Rights Clinic, and become part of a community of advocates working to create a more just and equitable world. Students work in small project teams with clinicians who provide guidance, mentorship, and continual feedback. Students are involved in all aspects of their projects, from conceptualizing goals and formulating strategies, to researching and drafting reports, treaties, and legal briefs, to interviewing witnesses, to presenting findings before courts and international bodies. The project work is informed by clinical seminars that combine case studies, role plays, interactions with practitioners and community members, critical reflection, and workshops of clinical projects.
Clinical Human Rights Practice
The International Human Rights Clinic’s docket draws on clinicians’ established expertise and networks in six broad areas, while remaining dynamic and responsive to emerging needs and the evolving field. Our practice includes: accountability and remedies, armed conflict and civilian protection, climate justice and the environment, gender, race, and non-discrimination, protecting fundamental freedoms, and social & economic justice. The Clinic employs a variety of lawyering methods that are tailored to the needs of each project, such as research and analysis, advocacy, strategic litigation, norm building and treaty drafting, and documentation and reporting.
How to Register
The International Human Rights Clinic is offered in the Fall and Spring semesters. You can learn about the required clinical course component, clinical credits and the clinical registration process by reading the course catalog description and exploring the links in this section.
The clinic also offers a 3L-only clinic option in the fall (International Human Rights Clinic – 3L Leadership Training with Advanced Seminar). This option is for students who have already completed a semester of the International Human Rights Clinic. This option has an early drop deadline of June 1, 2023.
Meet the Instructors
Susan Farbstein
Director; Clinical Professor of Law
Bonnie Docherty
Associate Director; Lecturer on Law
Anna Crowe
Associate Director; Lecturer on Law
Beatrice Lindstrom
Senior Clinical Instructor; Lecturer on Law
Aminta Ossom
Senior Clinical Instructor; Lecturer on Law
Daniel Levine-Spound
Clinical Teaching Fellow, Supervising Attorney of HLS Advocates from Human Rights
Staff Members
| Kelsey Ryan | Program and Communications Manager | keryan@law.harvard.edu |
| Sanjana Nayak | Program Assistant | snayak@law.harvard.edu |
In the News
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Curbing the Trade in Policing Equipment to Rights Abusers Video: How to Make a Torture-Free Trade Treaty Effective
As the culmination of two semester’s work, in May the Clinic convened an expert roundtable and hosted a public event on torture-free trade with the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Governance Centre.
July 22, 2024
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Clinical Project Leads to Academic Article in Harvard Human Rights Journal about the Role of Non-State Actors in Enforced Disappearances
The most recent print edition of the Harvard Human Rights Journal features an article co-authored by Clinical Director Susan Farbstein, Americas Director at the International Federation for Human Rights Jimena Reyes, and clinical alumni Sabrina Ochoa, JD ’24, Rebecca Gore, LLM ’23, Adriana Bones, JD ’24, Nitika Khaitan, LLM ’23, and Victoria Abut, JD ’24.
July 8, 2024
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Reviewing the Record: Resources on Incendiary Weapons from Human Rights Watch and the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School
A June 2024 compilation of publications produced by Human Rights Watch and the International Human Rights Clinic on the issue of incendiary weapons.
June 24, 2024
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Explosive Weapons Pose Threats to Cultural Heritage: States Have a Tool to Protect It
In early May 2022, Russian forces fired a munition that struck a museum complex including the final home of the 18th-century Ukrainian philosopher and poet Hryhorii Skovoroda. The attack sparked a fire that raged for nearly nine hours. By the time the blaze was extinguished, almost all that remained were scorched walls and a pockmarked statue of
June 4, 2024