Human Rights Program

On Nov. 12, Japan’s Yuji Iwasawa LL.M. ’78  was re-elected to the International Court of Justice, the U.N.’s principal judicial body, with overwhelming support from the U.N. member states. He will serve a 9-year term.

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 Human Rights Program recently spoke with Professor Gerald Neuman about how he sees the landscape changing for countries with populist leaders in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

A recent Harvard Law School Human Rights Program (HRP) workshop convened a group of experts for a discussion on indirect discrimination on the basis of religion.

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.

Born and raised in Nepal, Sabrina Singh ’20 has been speaking out about how the COVID-19 pandemic could exacerbate conditions in her home country.

For the Clinical Program at Harvard Law School, the past weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic have been a time to mobilize. As the clinics have moved to working remotely, their work has continued with new urgency.

The Harvard Law School Human Rights Program welcomed government officials, medical experts, legal scholars, and human rights activists from around the world to Cambridge on Feb. 28 for a global consultation on practices of so-called “conversion therapy” to which lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and gender diverse persons are subjected around the world.

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.

The Harvard Gazette recently spoke with Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the U.N. independent expert who is now a visiting researcher in residence at Harvard Law School, in advance of the presentation of his report on the adverse effects of laws and cultural norms on LGBTQ individuals to the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday.

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.

The British-trained French attorney who chose Harvard Law School for its human rights training plans to continue working on international human rights and international humanitarian law litigation.

As a Satter Human Rights Fellow, Jenny Domino LL.M. ’18 spent her fellowship year focused on how social media policy limits one's right to speak in the midst of democratic transition.