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Fall 2024 Clinic

Human Rights Entrepreneurs Clinic

To learn more about the Clinical Curriculum and Registration, please visit our Clinical Registration Center. You can also find more information on How to Register for Clinics and How Clinical Credits Work.

Enrollment in this clinic will fulfill the HLS JD pro bono requirement.

Required Class Component: Human Rights Litigation in U.S. Courts (2 fall classroom credits). Once you have enrolled in this clinic, the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs will enroll you in the required clinical course component.

Additional Co-/Pre-Requisites: None.

By Permission: No.

Add/Drop Deadline: August 18, 2023.

LLM Students: LLM students may enroll in this clinic through Helios.

Placement Site: HLS.

The Human Rights Entrepreneurs Clinic offers students the opportunity to work in a lab-like atmosphere to support entrepreneurs in start-ups as well as innovators within existing organizations as they translate their ideas for change into reality. The Clinic operates as a lab, and students have the opportunity to support partners as they develop and incubate ideas to pursue innovative strategic approaches that advance human rights. In particular, the Clinic focuses on frontier litigation related to climate justice and corporate accountability as well as community-centric approaches to business and human rights. The Clinic also supports student entrepreneurs whose work relates to human rights.

During the 2024-2025 academic year, the Clinic will focus on two major areas. First, the Clinic will support strategic litigation related to corporate accountability and climate justice, assisting with field building and the development and incubation of new legal theories and cases in these practice areas. Second, the Clinic will work with a coalition of groups experimenting with how to make the field of business and human rights more community-centric in the coming years. Communities are still too often missing from the conversation and key decisions, and the Clinic will support the coalition’s efforts to inform community engagement, business operations, and local, national, regional, and international frameworks, including relevant UN Guiding Principles, OECD Guidelines, an ongoing treaty-process, and European Union and national legislation and policies.