Analytical Paper Optional: All enrolled students have the option of completing a research paper of at least 20-25 pages, with faculty and peer review of a substantially complete draft. This paper can be used to satisfy the analytical paper requirement for J.D. students.

Prerequisite: None

Exam Type: No Exam

This seminar will operate as a lab and explore the current landscape of human rights litigation in U.S. courts, examining both the doctrinal and practice dimensions of this litigation. We will look at how modern human rights litigation started, how it has evolved, how it has changed (and not changed), and where we stand now. We will also think about the future prospects of such litigation in the United States and how it connects to other jurisdictions, including in Canada, Europe, South Africa, and elsewhere.

Modern human rights litigation in U.S. courts started in the late 1970s with the resurrection of the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). For many, the ATS has defined U.S.-based human rights litigation for the past forty years, but the litigation landscape has changed significantly during over time. While this seminar will take a close look at the past several decades, this will only be the starting point. The seminar will focus the majority of its time on current approaches to human rights litigation, including innovative test cases and a number of statutes that receive far less attention than the ATS has, including the Torture Victims Protection Act (TVPA) and the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA). In addition, we will look at strategic litigation focused on climate justice and corporate accountability and efforts to develop and incubate new legal theories and cases in these practice areas.

The seminar will also give us a chance to connect with day-to-day litigation practice, including the various stages of litigation as well as how litigation fits within broader human rights and climate justice advocacy efforts. Together, we will examine how litigation strategies and techniques have been shared and developed over time and identify common strategies and recurring legal issues that arise across the cases. The seminar will also examine practical issues, including how to work with communities, how to coordinate cases that touch on multiple jurisdictions, how to interact with large teams of lawyers in different countries, and how to address unique cross-cultural and logistical challenges given the transnational nature of these cases.

A limited number of seats in the seminar are reserved for clinical students enrolled in the Human Rights Entrepreneurs Clinic, where students work with entrepreneurial human rights practitioners as they develop and incubate ideas to pursue innovative strategic approaches that advance human rights. The Clinic operates as a lab, where students collaborate with partners to challenge systemic problems with systemic solutions while simultaneously deploying community-centric approaches to change. In particular, the Clinic focuses on corporate accountability and climate justice, as well as frontier litigation and systems litigation. Within these core focus areas, students can expect to build foundational lawyering skills as well as have the opportunity to intentionally practice creative lawyering and systems thinking as they help translate partners’ ideas for change into reality. 

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.