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Clinics & SPOs

International Human Rights Clinic

  • HLS International Human Rights Clinic files complaint against Guantanamo psychologist

    July 14, 2010

    On behalf of four Ohio citizens, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic filed a complaint with the Ohio Psychology Board on July 7, calling for an investigation into the conduct of Ohio-licensee Dr. Larry C. James, former chief psychologist of the intelligence command at the U.S. Naval Station in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

  • Bearing the Burden: Human Rights Clinic

    HLS Human Rights Clinic study shows need for legal reform in British Columbia

    June 21, 2010

    The special rights guaranteed to First Nations receive inadequate attention in British Columbia when compared to mining interests, the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard Law School said in a report released on June 7.

  • The Supreme Court

    Harvard Law students assist with Supreme Court brief on corporate Alien Tort Statute

    May 4, 2010

    Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of a petition for certiorari in a major corporate Alien Tort Statute case, Presbyterian Church of Sudan v. Talisman Energy, Inc. The Clinic served as counsel on behalf of international law scholars and jurists to argue that those who knowingly aid and abet egregious human rights violations can be held liable under customary international law.

  • Cluster Munitions Ban to Enter Into Force

    February 25, 2010

    For five years, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, in collaboration with Human Rights Watch, has advocated for the development and implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions. On Feb. 16, ratifications of the Convention by Burkina Faso and Moldova triggered the treaty’s entry into force.

  • Supreme Court statue

    International Human Rights Clinic files Supreme Court amicus brief on behalf of Somali torture survivor

    February 11, 2010

    The HLS International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC), under the direction of Clinical Director Tyler Giannini and Lecturer on Law Susan Farbstein, recently filed an amicus curiae brief in the U.S. Supreme Court case Samantar v. Yousuf. 

  • Clara Long '11 and Fernando Delgado '08

    At a deadly prison in Brazil, students document human rights violations (audio/slideshow)

    February 1, 2010

    At the southwestern tip of the Amazon, in Porto Velho, Rondônia, Brazil, stands Urso Branco, a prison notorious for deadly human rights violations. It’s nowhere anyone would choose to be. But it was into this dank, dark, and volatile world that Clara Long ’11, Fernando Delgado ’08, and James Cavallaro, executive director of Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program, insisted on going.

  • Cavallaro, Becker, President Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín

    International Human Rights Clinic suit against former Bolivian president and minister of defense moves forward

    November 16, 2009

    The U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida has ruled that the claims for crimes against humanity and extrajudicial killings could move forward in two related U.S. cases against former Bolivian President Gonzalo Daniel Sánchez de Lozada Sánchez Bustamante (Sánchez de Lozada) and former Bolivian Defense Minister Jose Carlos Sánchez Berzaín (Sánchez Berzaín). The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School is part of the legal team that filed the two complaints against Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín.

  • Navanethem Pillay, LL.M. ’82 S.J.D. ’88

    UN High Commissioner: Diplomacy key to securing human rights

    November 6, 2009

    In commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the UN’s Human Rights Program, the UN’s highest human rights official, Navanethem Pillay, LL.M. ’82 S.J.D. ’88, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, came to Harvard Law School to discuss her current position as a human rights diplomat and how it differs from her previous roles as a judge and an impassioned activist.

  • Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic report on gang violence in El Salvador

    October 1, 2009

    In February 2007, Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program issued a report on gang violence in El Salvador, "No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador."

  • Children in Sierra Leone

    Sierra Leone is losing its youth to diamond mining

    August 7, 2009

    Last year, Matthew F. Wells ’09 traveled through Sierra Leone visiting more than two dozen artisanal diamond mines, under the auspices of the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School.

  • Summer 2009

    A Year of Living Dangerously: Erica Gaston ’07 helped rebuild shattered lives by building trust

    July 31, 2009

    “From 2007 to 2008, the number of civilians killed in Afghanistan’s ongoing conflict rose 40 percent, according to U.N. figures.” So begins the report co-written by Erica Gaston ’07, with Rebecca Wright, during Gaston’s Henigson Fellowship year in Afghanistan, which started in January 2008.

  • Crimes in Burma cover

    HLS Human Rights Program issues new report on abuses in Burma

    May 28, 2009

    A new report issued by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School calls for the UN Security Council to act on human rights abuses in Burma. The report, “Crimes in Burma,” comes in the wake of renewed international attention due to the continued persecution of Nobel Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi.

  • South Africa flag

    HLS students work on historic corporate lawsuit involving human rights abuses during apartheid

    April 23, 2009

    The International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Program has been working since 2005 on corporate Alien Tort Statute (ATS) litigation involving human rights abuses committed in apartheid South Africa. 

  • Chris Rogers ’09, advocate for a ban on cluster weapons

    December 10, 2008

    Christopher Rogers ’09 has spent the better part of the past year in HLS’s International Human Rights Clinic working on issues related to cluster munitions, particularly surrounding the creation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

  • Four people sitting at a table with a cross hanging in the background

    Hands On

    July 25, 2008

    There are now 16 clinics at HLS, enabling students to do fieldwork at home and abroad. Here are stories from three of them, taking students inside inner cities and inner sanctums.

  • HLS International Human Rights Clinic co-releases report assessing prosecutions of apartheid-era crimes

    June 20, 2008

    The International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard Law School and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR) have joined together to release "Prosecuting Apartheid-Era Crimes? A South African Dialogue on Justice," a report examining recently intensified questions about prosecuting crimes committed during apartheid.