Tyler Giannini

On behalf of the Colombian peace communities, a coalition of human rights organizations - composed by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School, the International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), and the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyer's Association (CAJAR) - has asked the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate the alleged complicity of the leaders of Chiquita, the world's largest producer and distributor of bananas, in crimes against humanity..."During peace processes, economic actors often escape allegations, even when they have committed monstrous acts," said Professor Tyler Giannini, director of the Clinic of International Human Rights Law, at Harvard Law School: "The prosecution of Chiquita's leaders for their payments to the paramilitaries would be a sign that there is no impunity."

An op-ed by Yee Mon Htun and Tyler Giannini. At first glance, the UN Human Rights Council resolution passed on Myanmar looks like a rebuke of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) government. The resolution calls for an international investigation into “alleged recent human rights violations by the military and security forces,” singling out Rakhine State in particular for scrutiny. Given her muted public response to the violence, her government’s denials, and the lack of any serious domestic investigation to date, it would be easy to lay a lot of the blame at Aung San Suu Kyi’s door.

Satellite images show villages burned to the ground. Human rights groups relay allegations of rape and the slaughter of children. Thousands of refugees have fled across the border to Bangladesh, while aid workers have been prevented from reaching the afflicted. As the Myanmar Army unleashes a brutal counterinsurgency campaign against the Rohingya in the north, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s leader, has remained nearly silent, putting her status as an exemplar of democratic values and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in a different light...“Descriptions coming out of there are consistent with decades of abuse by the military against the Karen, Chin and Shan ethnic people,” said Tyler Giannini, a professor at Harvard Law School and a co-director of its International Human Rights Clinic. “That’s why it is beholden on the government to investigate what’s going on against the Rohingya and hold those responsible accountable.”

Mary T.W. Robinson, a former president of Ireland and current United Nations Special Envoy on El Niño and Climate, spoke about widespread human displacement due to climate change at a discussion at Harvard Law School on Thursday evening. Law School Dean Martha L. Minow moderated the discussion in front of a packed audience. “There is nobody on earth who is more involved, who has done more on the subjects that bring us here today,” Minow said when introducing Robinson. ... “The piece that really stood out to me was the need for us to most recognize the problem, but to think about it in a way that is proactive so that we are doing things that are active,” clinical professor of law Tyler R. Giannini said.

By Gerald Neuman ’80 and Tyler Giannini: We must always be the opponents, not the perpetrators, of murder and torture and degrading treatment. Continue Reading »

An op-ed by Matthew Thiman '16, Courtney Svoboda `16, and Tyler Giannini. Shortly after his daughter’s death, Brang Shawng sat down to write the first of two letters that would eventually get him convicted. He wrote to the president of Myanmar first, and then to the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, wanting to know what had happened to his daughter, whom he believed had been shot by the Myanmar military. “A submission is made with great respect,” he wrote to the president, “to find out the truth in connection with the killing, without a reason, of an innocent student, my daughter Ma Ja Seng Ing, who wore a white and green school uniform.”

An international legal expert says the settlement between the world's biggest gold miner and a group of women who were raped by security guards and police at the company's Pogera mine in Papua New Guinea has wider significance. The 11 women, and the families of three other people, were planning to file a lawsuit against Barrick Gold in the United States but the parties reached an out-of-court settlement. The confidential settlement means the women and their lawyers at Earth Rights International can't say much publicly. But one person who can is Tyler Giannini, a clinical professor of law and Co-Director of Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program. He has written widely about abuses related to the mining industry and carried out investigations in many countries including PNG. Mr Giannini says even though the details of deal can't be publicised, the deal by Barrick Gold is still highly significant.

On Nov. 7, the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School released a legal memorandum, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity in Eastern Myanmar, which examines the conduct of the Myanmar military during an offensive that cleared and forcibly relocated civilian populations from conflict zones in eastern Myanmar.

Leading generals in Burma’s powerful military should be charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity, according to researchers who claim to have accumulated enough evidence to mount a successful prosecution under international law. A four-year investigation by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School focused on an offensive in the eastern part of Burma, also known as Myanmar, in 2005 and 2006. The study documented soldiers firing mortars at villages, slaughtering fleeing villagers, destroying homes and food, laying land mines indiscriminately and forcing civilians to work without pay...“These are serious allegations that demand a determined, good faith response by the Myanmar government and military,” said Tyler Giannini, co-director of the clinic. “The abuses perpetrated by the military have been too widespread, too persistent, and too grave to be ignored.”

In a memorandum released on March, 24, Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic stated that the Myanmar military must reform policies and practices that threaten civilian populations in the country.

On June 24, 2013, family members of those killed in government-planned massacres in Bolivia in 2003 filed an amended complaint, with extensive new allegations that the defendants, former President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and former Defense Minister Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, had devised a plan to kill thousands of civilians months in advance of the violence. The family members are being represented by a team of lawyers, including Tyler Giannini and Susan Farbstein of Harvard Law School's International Human Rights Clinic,