Human Rights Program

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.

With the aim of advocating for refugees, Niku Jafarnia J.D. / M.P.P.’20 focused on the intersection of refugee rights, armed conflict, and counterterrorism as joint law and public policy student at Harvard.

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.

Victor Madrigal-Borloz, the United Nations Independent Expert for the protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, will join HLS' Human Rights Program as a senior visiting researcher in July.

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.

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.

Students and faculty from the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program spent a week in Texas volunteering at the Karnes Detention Center, where they met with fathers and sons who had been forcibly separated from each other under President Trump’s zero-tolerance policy. They offer their thoughts on this powerful and eye-opening experience.

The Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program’s Crimmigration Clinic and the Immigrant Defense Project issued two new resources for advocates and attorneys defending the rights of immigrants fighting removal to countries where they will be persecuted.

Many HLS alumni and students are engaged in legal and advocacy work related to immigration, including the situations of refugees and asylum seekers. For some of these lawyers, this interest predates their time at HLS, but has dovetailed with their coursework and hands-on learning during their time as law students.