Tyler Giannini

Marissa Vahlsing raised her hand in the first week of law school and spoke her mind. Right away, Ben Hoffman wanted to be her friend. Three years later they are off to work in Peru together, "the Siegfried and Roy of human rights law."

In a Supreme Court case, the International Human Rights Clinic argues that the Alien Tort Statute applies to corporations.

During the third week in March, a number of Harvard Law students traveled around the world and to remote areas in the U.S. to offer their legal services. With funding from the Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs, teams of students worked with farmers in the Mississippi Delta, immigrants in Alabama and patients living with HIV/AIDS in New Orleans.

In December, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of petitioners in a major Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. The brief in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. argues that corporations can be held liable for violations of the law of nations under the ATS.

On June 17, Harvard Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a petition for certiorari in a major corporate Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co.

Tyler Giannini has been appointed as a clinical professor of law at Harvard Law School. He was formerly a lecturer on law at HLS.

“No Place to Hide: Gang, State, and Clandestine Violence in El Salvador” (Harvard University Press, 2009), by Clinical Professor James Cavallaro and Spring Miller ’07, analyzes the…

For students and faculty in an HLS clinic, human rights and environmental law flow together.