International Human Rights Clinic

Harvard Law School’s team has won the national round of the 2021-2022 Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court Competition and will advance to the international round, to be held from March 24 through April 10.

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to unfold, of particular concern, says arms expert Bonnie Docherty, is the reported use of cluster munitions and other explosives in highly populated areas.

Since January 2020, Rez Gardi has been living in Duhok, in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Region.

Ais has been immersed in a blend of advocacy, legal scholarship, and community building.

After her first interview in Afghanistan, Nicolette Waldman ’13 realized she had found the career she was meant to pursue.

In October, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of legal historians in the consolidated cases against two U.S.-based chocolate companies alleged to have aided and abetted child slavery in West Africa.

Nine HLS students and alumni awarded prestigious Skadden Fellowship for public service.

Since joining Harvard Law School, Salma Waheedi, a clinical instructor and lecturer on law in the International Human Rights Clinic, has devoted a major part of her teaching and clinical legal practice to training students to become effective international women’s rights advocates.

A new report from the HLS International Human Rights Clinic and the Conflict and Environment Observatory establishes a new framework for addressing human harm resulting from the environmental consequences of conflict.

The Human Rights Program launches a series of talks exploring issues of racial justice and human rights. The inaugural event, “Advocating While Black,” takes place on Sept. 24 .

After months of delays, the International Human Rights Clinic filed an amicus brief in June in Doe. et al. v. Chiquita Brands International, a suit that seeks accountability for Chiquita's actions during the Colombian armed conflict from 1997 to 2004.

On August 3, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a trial court judgment that had been entered in favor of Bolivia’s former president, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and former defense minister, José Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, for the massacre of unarmed Indigenous people in 2003.

Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic and the University Network for Human Rights released a report Monday documenting widespread human rights abuses carried out under Bolivia’s interim president since she assumed power in November 2019.

Beatrice Lindstrom, clinical instructor and supervising attorney in the International Human Rights Clinic, has been working for nearly a decade to secure accountability from the U.N. for a devastating cholera outbreak caused by UN peacekeepers in Haiti in 2010.

This year, the Harvard Law School Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs has recognized six students from the Class of 2020 for their outstanding clinical and pro bono work.

In a Q&A, Yee Htun, clinical instructor in the International Human Rights Clinic, talks about systemic discrimination and violence against ethnic Rohingya in Myanmar and how Rohingya refugees are coping in the midst of a global pandemic.

With headlines declaring 2019 the year that the world woke up to climate change, Aminta Ossom ’09 sees hope in approaching the issue from a specific angle: human rights.

As a member of Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, Madelyn Petersen '19 and several other students traveled to northwest Iowa to study how the federal government’s plan to potentially privatize the U.S. Postal Service might affect the small, largely rural communities there.

This fall, Harvard Law School Clinical Professor Susan Farbstein ’04 is teaching "Human Rights Careers: Strategic Leadership Workshop," a seminar focused on advocacy and leadership for students interested in careers in human rights or social justice.

Bonnie Docherty ’01, associate director the Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative (ACCPI) at Harvard Law School, discusses humanitarian disarmament, and a recent discussion with Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow.

Photo exhibit traces the history of nuclear weapons from the devastation of early use and testing to the current global effort to eliminate them.

In his work with Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic and beyond, Paras Shah '19 has always centered his approach to human rights on inclusion.

1L January Experiential Term courses focus on skills-building, collaboration and self-reflection

Dalia Deak ’19 is this year’s winner of the individual David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Award, given each year to the student who embodies the pro bono spirit of the late professor and exemplifies putting theory into practice through clinical work.

Radhika Kapoor LL.M. ’19 came to HLS to take advantage of Harvard’s institutional expertise in international law, humanitarian law and post-conflict stability—and to foster her love of reading.

Lindsay Bailey’19, Lisandra Novo’19 and Elisa Quiroz ’19 are the winners of the team 2019 David Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award.

When Myanmar’s military junta tightened its grip in the late ’80s to quash a nationwide democracy movement, Yee Htun fled the brutal crackdown on dissent along with her mother, a doctor turned human rights activist, and three siblings. After five years in a refugee camp in Thailand, they immigrated to Canada as government-sponsored refugees, unsure of when they might return home.

More than 100 years after students started the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, there are now 40 clinics and Student Practice Organizations at HLS, focused on everything from cyberlaw to veterans’ rights.

In recognition of their demonstrated excellence in representing clients and undertaking advocacy or policy reform projects, Amy Volz ’18 and Ha Ryong Jung (Michael) ’18 were named the 2018 recipients of the David A. Grossman Exemplary Clinical Student Award, named in honor of the late Clinical Professor David Grossman ’88.

In his time at Harvard Law School, Ha Ryong (Michael) Jung ’18 has completed extensive coursework and clinical training in children’s rights, human rights and child protection, criminal justice, international and foreign law, and human rights advocacy and negotiation to shape a future career in child advocacy.

When the verdict came down, most of the litigation team was in the second row of the courtroom, leaning forward, tense with the waiting, trembling at times. But Thomas Becker '08 was in the front row, arm around the shoulders of Felicidad Rosa Huanca Quispe, whose father was shot dead in the street all those years ago.

After Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in 2017, Puerto Rican native Natalie Trigo Reyes ’19 felt “completely overwhelmed.” Within days, however, she raised $40,000 for relief efforts, collected truckloads of emergency goods, and helped plan the school’s response to the disaster.

In a landmark decision today, a federal jury found the former president of Bolivia and his minister of defense responsible for extrajudicial killings carried out by the Bolivian military. The landmark litigation began with a collaboration between Bolivian partners and the Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic

Earlier this month, about two dozen international experts gathered for “Humanitarian Disarmament: The Way Ahead,” the inaugural conference of the Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection Initiative (ACCPI) at Harvard Law School.

2017 was a year of notable accomplishments for Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), and for Bonnie Docherty '01, associate director of Armed Conflict and Civilian Protection and lecturer on law at HLS.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), with which Harvard's International Human Rights Clinic collaborated during the negotiations of a nuclear weapon ban treaty, received the Nobel Peace Prize today. IHRC joined ICAN and UK-based disarmament organization Article 36 in the efforts for the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

Harvard Law School has announced that the family of the late Samuel Pisar LL.M. ’55 S.J.D. ’59, has endowed a professorship and a fund to support the International Human Rights Clinic.

On May 18, on behalf of affected Colombian communities, a coalition of human rights groups including the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School called on the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the complicity of executives at Chiquita Brands International in crimes against humanity.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program has been addressing the legal concerns of Harvard students, faculty, staff, and individuals affected in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by recent executive action on immigration.

Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic has released a new report, "Securing Status: Syrian refugees and the documentation of legal status, identity, and family relationships in Jordan," that details the challenges Syrian refugees living outside refugee camps encounter obtaining official documents from the Government of Jordan.

In a recent conversation at HLS with Dean Martha Minow, Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and U.N. special envoy on El Niño and climate change, told the story of how she came to be an “Angry Granny” on the topic of climate change, starting with her discussions with people in the most deeply affected communities.

In late October Harvard Law School celebrated National Pro Bono Week with a number of events to honor the outstanding work of lawyers who volunteer their time to help people in their communities.

A number of Harvard Law students from the Class of ’16 received special awards this year during the 2016 Class Day ceremony on May 25. The students were recognized for their outstanding leadership, citizenship, compassion and dedication to their studies and the profession.

In a report issued last week, the Harvard Law School International Human Rights Clinic and Human Rights Watch call for countries to retain meaningful human control over weapons systems and ban fully autonomous weapons, also known as 'killer robots.'

Clinical Instructor Deborah Popowski '08 has led the effort to hold psychologists accountable for their involvement in torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Thirteen Harvard Law School students were selected as the 2016 Cravath International Fellows. The fellows traveled to 12 countries for winter term clinical placements or independent research with an international, transnational, or comparative law focus. Below, four of those students are highlighted.